Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

kinds. It would be amusing if they had a sense of humor about it.”
    “The newer the state, the greater the need to be taken seriously,” Ian said.
    Susa sighed. “What do you think, Lacey?”
    “About global politics?” she asked, startled.
    “About my choices,” Susa said, gesturing toward the various paintings.
    “Don’t look at me for help. It took me weeks to pick the paintings I brought to you.”
    “Well, I’ve done all I can until I know what Rarities needs.”
    “Uh, there are more,” Lacey said.
    “Paintings?” Susa asked. “Where?”
    “In the cupboard. Shayla hates them so much I hide them so she doesn’t have to trip over them when we’re getting new stuff for the shop.”
    Susa’s eyebrows lifted. “Everyone’s a critic. Have you heard from her yet?”
    “No. I don’t expect to until she gets out of the back country of Peru and into a place where there’s cell phone coverage. That could be ten days.” Lacey headed for the far wall, picking her way through paintings. “Besides, she couldn’t do anything I haven’t already done, except maybe help me kick butt at the insurance company.”
    “A worthy cause,” Ian said. “If you need backup, I’ve got size thirteen boots at your disposal.”
    She looked over her shoulder and smiled slowly. “Save them for kicking the deputies who are looking for Susa’s paintings.” Lacey opened the first cupboard and began pulling out the Death Suite. “Help me pass these out to Susa, will you?”
    “Sure.” He walked with surprising delicacy through the mess, considering the size thirteen boots he wore.
    The light in the storage unit wasn’t great, but it was plenty bright enough for Ian to see the subject of the paintings as he handed them along to Susa.
    “Man, your grandfather must have been a cheerful bastard,” Ian said as he looked at the fifth version of the drowning woman.
    “He had his moments,” Lacey mumbled.
    Susa didn’t say anything. She just took each dark painting and propped the canvas against whatever she could so that she was able to compare them at the same time. There were eleven of the water.
    The twelfth painting was different.
    “New topic,” Ian said. “Finally.” He shifted the painting Lacey had just handed to him and whistled through his teeth. “This time he’s burning ’em to death.”
    “There isn’t a human figure in his fire canvases,” Lacey said.
    “That’s your story,” he said. “From here, it looks like a cremation.” And it reminded him far too much of the fire last night.
    Susa glanced at the painting, frowned, and began stacking it in a new area, away from the first eleven.
    Silently Lacey handed out six more paintings of a house or a cottage or something burning down. Despite her defense of her grandfather’s works to Ian, she was all too certain that the heaped shadows in the background of each canvas had once been human.
    Shaking his head, Ian passed the paintings along to Susa, who kept her silence.
    “Last batch,” Lacey said.
    “For these small favors, Lord, we give thanks,” Ian said under his breath. He’d seen violent death in his time, yet somehow the painter had managed to capture and vividly enhance the suffering, the rage, and the finality of the act of murder. “He might have been a forger,” Ian said, looking at a car wreck where what could have been a slack white hand dangled against the crumpled, sprung door. A trail of fire led down theslope to the car, marking the leakage from the ruined gas tank. Flames and a full moon leered down at the scene, competing to give ghastly illumination to death. “But he was damn good at it.”
    “Talk about small favors,” Lacey said under her breath.
    Ian kept staring at the painting, tantalized by the sense of something not quite seen. Something…familiar.
    “Hello?” Lacey said, holding out another canvas to him.
    “Huh?” He looked up. “Oh, sorry. Something about this…”
    “Pass it along,” Susa said. “The light’s better out here.”
    “And there are ten more of them to look at,” Lacey said.
    Ian handed the painting over, and the ten that followed it. When he was finished, he was more certain than ever that the paintings were somehow familiar.
    Yet he was positive he’d never seen them before in his life.
    “Ian? You want to see the pictures in better light?” Susa asked.
    “Uh, yeah.” Frowning, he picked his way between shelves and racks of items that his great-aunt called “dust