Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

living room carrying her portable computer under her arm. Without a word, she popped open the screen and pointed to the date listed on an elaborate professional calendar.
    “David Quinn wasn’t here,” she said. “I know, because my mother’s funeral happened to be on that day.”
    Lacey closed her eyes. She’d hoped her grandfather had been in Pasadena. She certainly hadn’t expected to be able to prove that he wasn’t so quickly, so definitely.
    “What about the other two dates?” she asked painfully.
    “That was before your father’s time,” Ian said. “And, apparently, before your grandfather’s.”
    “What?”
    “As far as I can find, David Quinn never existed in any official file until he married SaraBeth Courtney forty-eight years ago.”

Savoy Ranch
    Sunday afternoon
54
    R ory rubbed his face wearily, leaned back into the soft leather couch, and stared at the gas fire in the hearth. He hadn’t wanted to bring Bliss to the ranch to discuss old death with Ward and his two children, but she hadn’t been able to let go of it.
    Defensively Bliss flipped through the nearly decade-old coroner’s report for the fifth time and dumped it on the coffee table in front of Savoy. “So she was alone in the spa, drinking vodka on the rocks and popping painkillers. So what? She did it all the time and she didn’t drown.”
    Ward said something under his breath and shook his head.
    Savoy picked up the old report and glanced through it. He didn’t find anything new. He didn’t expect to. He took a drink of his beer and set the bottle on a coaster on the coffee table.
    “Well?” she challenged.
    “Do you really think Mother was murdered?” Savoy asked.
    Bliss’s mouth set in a stubborn line. Then she looked at her new husband, seeing the tension and fatigue in the line of his shoulders. She stopped pacing and went to sit next to him.
    “No,” she said. “I guess not. It’s just…it was so shocking to see that bracelet.” She shivered. “And I keep wondering how the painter knew about it.”
    “Intertwined hearts aren’t exactly a rare jewelry design,” Savoy pointed out.
    “But the bracelet itself is unique,” she insisted. “It was commissioned for Grandmother’s engagement.”
    Ward just shook his head. “Savvy’s right. Go into any jewelry store and you’ll find heart bracelets and rings and whatnot. Besides, the painting’s not photographic. Even if your bracelet had looked a lot different, you still could have seen it in the painting.”
    She knew he was right and it pissed her off. “Don’t you care that Mother could have been murdered?”
    Ward took a long swallow of beer, set the bottle down with extreme care, and gave his daughter a look that had her wishing she was still standing so she could back up.
    “It would have been easier on me if she had been murdered,” Ward said. “Rory and I spent a lot of time and political favors keeping Gem’s suicide from dragging the Forrest name through every sleazy tabloid in the county, state, and nation.”
    Bliss went white. “I heard whispers, but I never really believed she killed herself.”
    Rory put his arm around Bliss. “Sugar, your mother took after her father, and he wasn’t real stable after he hit the bottle. Your dad and I worked hard to keep down the gossip about her. When she wasn’t drying out in one resort or another, she was drinking and partying hard. I threw the worst of her gigolos out of the county and paid off the rest of them.”
    Bliss looked at her brother. “Savvy?”
    He looked like he’d bitten into something sour. “When Mother was sober, she was a wonderful woman, laughing and witty and beautiful.”
    Ward grunted. “You got a longer memory than mine, boy. All I remember is the drunk.” Then he waved his hand abruptly. “Oh, hell, Gem was all right when she wasn’t drinking, but she just didn’t spend much time sober and refused to pull herself out of the booze.”
    Savoy didn’t argue. It was the unhappy truth.
    Bliss gnawed on her thumb, looked at her bracelet, and gnawed some more.
    Gently Rory tookher hand between his own. “I know it’s hard, but look at it this way,” he said to Bliss. “No one benefited from her death. There weren’t any jealous lovers who’d want to kill her, because they’d all been paid off and were happy to take the money. As for a jealous husband—”
    Ward gave a crack of sardonic laughter. “I didn’t care who she screwed, as long as she