Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

greasy, garlicky sausage sandwich that smelled good to her now.
    “ If my grandfather’s forgeries are a common thread,” she said after a moment, “and if my shop was deliberately burned to destroy them, and if it was my grandfather’s paintings rather than Susa’s that were the target of the hotel theft, then whoever did it might try to burn or steal the other paintings.”
    I would have to pick a smart woman, Ian thought as he put out another thick sandwich.
    She waited until he reached for one of the three big boxes of salad. “Well?” she asked.
    “It’s your paranoid fantasy, not mine,” he said.
    “Then why did you move the paintings?”
    He opened the salad box. “Same fantasy. Sit down and eat.”
    “Well, that was like pulling teeth.” She sat cross-legged next to him on the floor by the coffee table and reached for a section of sandwich. “The only problem with that fantasy is—”
    “If selling fake Martens is profitable, who benefits from burning them?” he interrupted.
    Her lower lip pushed out. “I was going to ask you first.”
    “Beat you to it. Pass one of those forks, would you?”
    She gave him a plastic fork. “So my shop was just one of those things—cold hands, hot fire, ocean wind?”
    “That’s what the preliminary investigation concluded.”
    “Even after you talked about paraffin and gasoline?”
    “How’d you find out about that?” he asked.
    “I heard some of the cops talking to the firemen after they talked to you.”
    “Worst gossips in the world.” Ian bit into a spicy Italian sausage sub.
    “But it’s just a preliminary investigation,” she said. “Surely after more work—”
    “Don’t count on it,” he cut in. “While you and your mother were bonding over virtual hair styles on the computer, I called the Newport PD on my cell phone for an update.”
    “Mmph?” she asked, chewing and swallowing frantically so she could ask questions.
    “The short version is that they’re understaffed and overwhelmed by the Birthday Candle Arsonist. Unless they hear on the streets that Cosmic Energy was a professional burn, they’re going to chalk it up to homeless people starting a trash can fire that got away from them. That’s where the evidence points.”
    She reached for the bottle of soda that had been part of the deli package meal and washed down the turkey.
    “Sure you don’t want some of the champagne that’s in the fridge?” he asked.
    “Are you drinking any?”
    He thought of the phone call. Stop asking questions or she’ll die . “Champagne doesn’t sound good to me.”
    “Neither did beer,” she said, sucking a slice of tomato off her thumb.
    “Don’t feel like bubbles.” He took a swallow from her bottle.
    “You’re drinking Coke.”
    “Different bubbles.”
    She tossed her head in an attempt to keep her hair out of her sandwich. “You’re on vacation.”
    “Sure am.”
    “But you’re still wearing a gun.”
    “Yeah.” He took another garlic-laden bite from his sub and then held it out to her. “Better eat some in self-defense.”
    As she took the sub, he tucked her damp curly hair out of the way and ran the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone with a gentleness that made her heart turn over.
    “Let me help you, Lacey.”
    Her eyes searched his intently. “I don’t want you getting hurt because of me,” she said. “Can’t you understand that?”
    “I understand.” He kissed her fast and hard, then smiled slowly. “I just don’t agree. Unhand my sandwich, woman, or prepare to defend yourself.”
    Smiling, shaking her head, not knowing how he got around her so easily, she took a big bite and returned the garlicky mess to him. Then she waited until he sank his teeth into the soggy bread before she reached out and tugged lightly at the shoulder harness he wore over his T-shirt.
    “Teach me how to shoot your gun,” she said.
    He grinned slowly. “You shoot my gun just fine.”
    “Ian, I mean it.”
    “I know you do.” He sighed, set down the sandwich, licked his thumb, and said, “Have you ever shot a gun? Any kind of gun?”
    “No.”
    “Held one?”
    “No.”
    Bloody hell, as Niall always says. Annie Oakley would have been easier
    Ian wiped his hands on several napkins before he drew his gun from its holster with a speed that startled Lacey.
    “This is the safety,” he said.
    She looked where he pointed. “Safety.”
    “In this position it’s on. The gun can’t fire. In this”—his finger