Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

of Ward. “We’re pleased with it.”
    She smiled like the businesswoman she was, but couldn’t help looking eagerly around. “I can’t believe I’ll get a chance to talk with one of the most famous painters America has ever produced. La Susa is coming, isn’t she?” Angelique asked.
    Savoy smiled and silently congratulated himself on arranging the dinner tonight. It was the historic and artistic lure that had drawn New Horizons to Savoy Enterprises in the first place. The association of his grandfather Three Savoy with California Impressionism helped to separate Savoy Enterprises from others courting the cash-rich New Horizons. Presenting Angelique to Susa Donovan would definitely put a rosy glow around the Forrest name.
    And unless Bliss got over her pique real soon and lined up with the rest of the family, the name was going to need all the help it could get.
    “La Susa and her escort should be here momentarily,” Savoy said.
    “I saw the easels. Is she really bringing some paintings?” Angelique asked.
    “At least three. It’s her way to thank people for their patronage of the arts. How is your own painting coming?”
    Angelique laughed and shook her head. “It’s just a hobby. A series of art teachers have assured me that I’m not even in the gifted amateur category. But that doesn’t prevent me from enjoying the talent of a true artist like La Susa.”
    A stir behind Savoy told him the guest of honor had arrived. That, and Angelique’s murmur, “Oh, my, she’s petite.”
    As Savoy stepped forward to handle all the introductions, he speculated about Susa’s “escort.” While hardly a boy, the man still looked young enough to be one of her sons.
    “Just set them up over there, Ian,” Susa said, gesturing toward the end of the room. “Then you can stand guard over them like a junkyard dog or you can eat with the rest of us.” She leaned close enough not to be overheard. “But if you stay with the paintings I’ll put ground glass in your breakfast coffee.”
    “I’m your Siamese twin.”
    “Good answer.” Susa put a gracious smile on her face and turned to greet the rest of the dinner guests.
    Ian went to the easels and began carefully unwrapping the unframed paintings Susa carried around with less fanfare than most women would a purse. There were four easels and four paintings. Two of them were from the early stages of Susa’s long career. The other two were so fresh they still smelled of the oils that had been used to create them. Ian didn’t know which made him more nervous—older paintings worth close to a million bucks or art so new it was barely safe to handle, despite the metallic salts Susa and Lacey had added to their paints to accelerate the drying process.
    “Extraordinary,” Savoy said. Even without the spare signature——in the lower left-hand corner of each painting, he could see that it was the same painter no matter the differences that artistic development had brought.
    He stared at the paintings of the dark, narrow ravine where his grandfather and great-grandmother had died in separate accidents. This was Bliss’s “sacred ground,” land that she would rather drag the family into ruin than develop. His mother had died a lot closer to home in another accident. At least that’s what the coroner’s report had said, but when the coroner/sheriff was a close friend of the family, it wasn’t hard to switch death by suicide to accidental death by overdose of drugs and alcohol, and let tongues wag until they bled about the Savoy Curse.
    “The old and the new are different, yet no one else could have painted them but La Susa,” Savoy said.
    “I’ll take your word on it. I only saw her paint these two,” Ian said, setting up the second new canvas.
    “I’m relieved,” Savoy said dryly. “The other two were painted before you were born, and well before suburbs crowded up against the sea.”
    Ian looked at the paintings. Savoy was right. Beneath the differences in execution, season, and color, the land was the same except for the amount of buildings in the background at the edges of the modern paintings.
    “Have you worked for Susa long?” Savoy asked.
    “No.”
    Savoy waited, but Ian didn’t say anything more. “The maître d’ said you were bringing a third person, a Ms. Marsh?” Savoy asked.
    “It didn’t work out. Sorry, I guess the maître d’ didn’t have time to tell you.”
    Savoy shrugged. “Any guest of Susa’s would be welcome. Is