Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

door.” Then she laughed out loud. She couldn’t help it. The idea of her butt looking like a piece of performance art was too funny to bury in silence. “You looked pretty cute yourself. Bet you had the only purple-eyed pocket snake in captivity.”
    “Don’t forget the green racing stripes.”
    “I’ll never forget the green racing stripes.” Lacey was still laughing when she got out of the car.
    Dottie Quinn couldn’t help smiling at the picture her grinning daughter made in a cream silk shirt, camel slacks, and black cashmere jacket. So much better than her usual wretched paint-stained jeans and flea-market coats. Then the late afternoon sun flashed on a ridiculous piece of sixties beaded sun-face jewelry that totally ruined the ensemble. Dottie sighed, wondering how that particular piece of junk had survived the fire. Then she remembered that the shop’s overstock items were kept in storage. No doubt the tawdry necklace came from there.
    “Lacey, you look wonderful,” Dottie said, ignoring her daughter’s ratty sandals.
    “I should. You handpicked my outfit.” But Lacey hugged her mother with enthusiasm. Neither of them could help their differences; theycould only accept them and move on. “It was lovely of you to fix dinner for us on such short notice.”
    Brody came down the steps to shake Ian’s hand. “Are you kidding? You saved me from another night of tuna surprise.”
    “Brody!” Dottie said, horrified. “I’ve never served you anything called that.”
    “Now that’s a shame,” Ian said, smiling. “All my relatives swap recipes for tuna surprise. I was wondering what the Pasadena version tasted like.”
    Lacey shot him a warning look.
    He winked. Then he gave Dottie the smile that made people forget all the reasons why they thought they shouldn’t trust him.
    All through dinner and cleanup afterward, Lacey watched in bemusement as Ian charmed her parents into forgetting that he wore a gun under his cheerfully unfashionable sport coat and didn’t have any ancestors worth painting and hanging on the wall. She also noticed that each time he brought up the subject of her grandfather, her parents changed the subject without really saying much of anything about David Quinn. She was sure that Ian noticed it, too.
    “Did you always live in Pasadena?” Ian asked Brody.
    “I have vague memories of living in Antelope Valley as a child, but otherwise I’ve always lived in Pasadena. Dottie and I bought this place after Lacey was born.”
    Ian’s eyebrows went up. “I should have gone into law instead of law enforcement.”
    Brody looked uncomfortable. So did Dottie.
    “Grandfather helped,” Lacey said.
    Her parents stared at her.
    “Who told you that?” Brody asked.
    “Grandfather. I was about five. You and he had just had a shouting match and I was crying in my room, afraid that Grandpa Rainbow would go away and never come back. He found me in my room, set me on his shoulders, and told me not to worry, he owned the house so he wasn’t going anywhere he didn’t want to.”
    “Sounds like being an artist paid pretty well,” Ian said casually.
    Dottie gave her husband a worried glance.
    “Well enough,” Brody said. “Who do you think will win the Super Bowl?”
    Ian looked past Dottie to Lacey. “Sorry, darling.”
    “I didn’t think we drove all this way for small talk and a big dinner. Go ahead,” she said, though she suspected he would have anyway.
    He gave her a smile, a different one, gentle and sad and admiring all at once.
    “I wish I’d come here just as Lacey’s…beau,” he said to her parents, remembering his great-grandmother talking about her youth, when girls had beaux instead of boy toys and roommates. “But Lacey and I came here to find out more about her grandfather.”
    Dottie’s smile vanished. “He’s dead. That’s all anyone needs to know.”
    Brody picked up his wife’s clenched hand and put it between his own. “It’s all right, honey. I’ve already withdrawn my name from the judge pool, remember?”
    She looked even more grim. “It’s so damned unfair. You always—”
    “It’s all right,” he interrupted. “Part of me was always trying to overcome my father’s lack of scruples. I don’t have to be a judge to prove that I’m not what my father was. Besides, now we get to travel.”
    Slowly her fingers relaxed and she returned his smile. For a moment she looked years younger. “Paris first?”
    “Then London, Rome, and every