Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

paintings.”
    “That’s great!” Ian looked around at the canvases stacked against or hanging on the wall. “Which ones?”
    “Not ones I’ve painted. The ones my—the ones I found at a garage sale,” she corrected quickly.
    “Oh. That explains it.”
    “What?”
    “Why the e-mails were addressed to Ms. Marsh.”
    And why there were only six listed e-mails, all of them within the past twenty-four hours. Obviously “Ms. Marsh” was a very new identity that had been activated recently, probably for the mystery paintings. Ian had pretty much figured that out already, but in his line of work independent verification was always good. What he really wanted to figure out was what Lacey was hiding, and why.
    He wondered if a champagne picnic would loosen her tongue.

Savoy Ranch
    Wednesday afternoon
14
    T he dirt road wound out of the grassy canyon and up the chaparral-covered flanks of the coastal hills. Although the ranch had three guarded gates close to public roads, the back country had few fences, many twisting tracks, and no guards. Anyone who knew the back roads of the county could bypass the gates and have a lovely drive through open land—until one of the ranch hands noticed and put out an alarm. Then a county deputy or ranch employee would show up and escort the trespassers back to public highways.
    Overhead, wind stirred the clouds into swirls of shadow and light, drama and tranquillity. Ian drove the ragged ranch road with the ease of a man who had seen a lot of dirt tracks in his childhood. The vehicle he drove could have belonged to his childhood, too. It was a GMC SUV from the time before SUVs got their name. He called it a truck and dared anyone else to do otherwise. Truck chassis, bench seat in front, backseat ripped out to make room for more covered cargo area, fourwheel drive that didn’t go sour with hard work—Ian’s baby was dusty, battered, smooth-running, and tough. Everything that mattered to performance was in top shape, from the new safety windshield for the new wipers to the well-tuned engine and expensive off-road tires.
    Even after all Ian’s hard work, when put next to the fleet of white Savoy Enterprises vehicles that the ranch hands used, his ancient truck looked like an accident waiting to happen.
    Susa and Lacey loved the truck at first sight.
    He just enjoyed one of the perks of having a pretty woman in the center of the seat—in spite of the after-market seat belts he’d installed, every time he swerved right, Lacey slid across the slick old bench seat and into him.
    The tires bit into a hard right curve, spitting dirt and gravel. Susa laughed like a girl and hung on to the “chicken bar” above the passenger window. Lacey didn’t have a chicken bar, so she braced herself against the dashboard and occasionally against the driver’s hard thigh. When she did, he gave her a pirate’s grin and gunned the truck just enough to make her hold on to him tighter.
    Sunlight spilled like glory through ghost-white naked sycamore branches in the canyon below. Mist was a silver whisper sighing through the trees, caressing every crease and hollow, shimmering with time and secrets.
    “Oh my,” Susa breathed. “It squeezes your heart, the beauty.”
    “Want to stop?” Ian asked.
    “If we stopped at every beautiful place we saw, we’d never make it to the top,” Susa said.
    “There are worse fates,” Lacey said.
    “Ah, but I know where we’re going,” Susa said, smiling. “It’s worth getting there. I can’t wait to capture it on canvas again. And fail miserably, again.”
    Lacey glanced at the artist who was a living legend and didn’t seem to know it. Or maybe she just didn’t care. “Have you been here before?” Lacey asked.
    “Yes, when I was much younger than you.”
    “I thought your biography said you were born in Sacramento, not around here.”
    “I was. But I was the wrong child for my parents, so I lied about myage, moved to a shack out in Laguna Canyon, and started painting. Those were the days—turpentine and starvation.” She laughed wryly. “I cleaned every house but my own to survive. I made a lot of friends, painted until I couldn’t see the canvas, and sat up all night solving the problems of the universe while drinking bad wine with other lost souls.”
    “Sounds like me. Parents and all.” Then Lacey added hurriedly, “Not that I’ll ever be nearly as good a painter as you.”
    Susa waved off the words. “It’s the pursuit that