Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

was no signature on Marten’s paintings—and how they had survived the fire that killed Marten and burned his life’s work to smelly ash.

Newport Beach
    Wednesday
13
    F rowning, Lacey clamped a brush between her teeth and looked at the landscape she was painting. It wasn’t working. Maybe it was the fact that she’d been thinking about Susa and David Quinn’s paintings. Maybe she was just having a bad day and shouldn’t be trying to paint.
    And maybe she was spending all her energy wondering what to do about a string of e-mails from one of the most powerful men in the state of California.
    Ignore him. He’ll go away.
    She blew fiercely at the curl that kept dangling over her right eye, switched brushes, and added a touch more yellow to the green already on her brush.
    Dad would shit a litter of green lizards if he knew.
    And that’s what the painting she was working on looked like—a litter of excreted green lizards.
    “The hell with it,” she said, throwing down her brush in disgust.
    “It’s not that bad,” Ian said.
    Lacey gasped and turned around so fast she almost tripped. “What are you doing here?”
    “I came to pick up my poster and—”
    “It’s downstairs.”
    “Your partner sent me up here,” Ian continued, ignoring the interruption. “Susa wants you to come and paint with her out on the Savoy Ranch.”
    Lacey just stared at him. “What?”
    “My poster,” he said, beginning all over again. “You know, the one that—”
    “Not that,” she cut in. “Susa wants me to paint with her?”
    “Yeah.” He tilted his head and took in her shocked brown eyes. “Something wrong with that?”
    Lacey took a breath, then another. “Susa is a goddess.”
    “I’ll have to tell her sons. They haven’t figured it out. Archer is sure she’s a mortal in need of tender loving care.” Ian smiled slowly.
    “Don’t smile like that,” she said, groaning. “I’m having a hard enough time thinking as it is.”
    He laughed and wound a shining chestnut curl around his finger. Letting the hair go, he stroked the back of his finger down her cheek. “You’re one of a kind, Ms. Marsh.”
    “More like one of thousands who get lost in that smile.”
    “No one ever had any trouble finding her way out again real quick.”
    “I’m terrible at mazes,” Lacey admitted.
    “This is supposed to discourage me?”
    “Think of it as a warning.” She smiled crookedly and drew in a deep, cautious breath. Lord, but the man was good. He hadn’t crowded her at all, yet her heart was doing the double-time thing. “Does Susa really want me to paint with her?”
    “Don’t take my word for it. Ask her yourself.”
    “Wow.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Just wow. I’ll be all thumbs and squirt oils everywhere.” Lacey sighed. “But La Susa has taught classes and done videos, so I guess she’s used to awed students getting clumsy around her.”
    “After ten minutes, you’ll never think of her as La Susa again. She’lljust be Susa, a wife and mother and woman with a great sense of humor and a mind like a steel trap.”
    “You left out the part about being beautiful,” Lacey said, thinking of Susa’s petite elegance.
    “She’s happily married to a man who would clean my clock if he caught me flirting with his wife.”
    “In that case, when do we go painting?”
    “The hotel put up a fancy picnic so we can go whenever you’re ready.”
    “Which hotel?”
    “The one that’s opening Saturday with the charity auction.”
    “Savoy Hotel? Am I dreaming?”
    Lazily Ian reached out as though to pinch her.
    Lacey swatted his hand away. “No, I don’t want to wake up. I get Susa and a catered lunch from a five-star chef?”
    “Five stars, huh? No wonder the stuff smelled so good.”
    Behind Lacey, her computer beeped, telling her that another e-mail had arrived.
    “Something important?” Ian asked.
    She shrugged and said under her breath, “More like some one .”
    Ian glanced at the screen. Her e-mail program was open. Five e-mails were lined up, three unread. A sixth was displayed on the screen.
    “Are you always this nosy?” Lacey asked as he leaned toward the computer.
    “Yes.”
    “Anyone ever tell you it’s rude to read other people’s mail?”
    “Constantly, but my own is so boring.”
    She hit a button on the keyboard and the mail program vanished.
    “Dang,” he said. “Just when it was getting interesting. What does Savoy Forrest want?”
    “To buy my