Silver Linings

like this over my stuff.”
    “What sort of stuff do you do?”
    “Metal sculpture. The name's Shock Value. Shock Value Frederickson. But I'm thinking of changing it. It doesn't go with my new direction, you know?”
    “Yeah?”
    “My work is getting more refined,” Shock Value explained patiently. “Things are just flowing for me now, thanks to Mattie, and the flow is changing everything.”
    “Mattie? How the hell is she involved?”
    “She's sort of like one of those old-fashioned patrons, you know? She's keeping me in groceries while I work on my latest project. One of these days I'll pay her back.”
    “Uh-huh. How much has she loaned you?”
    “I don't remember exactly,” Shock Value said carelessly. “Wow, there's a friend of mine. Haven't seen him since he broke his ankle doing some performance art in the park last month. Nice talking to you, whatever your name is. See you around.”
    A long time later Hugh watched Mattie carefully lock the door of Sharpe Reaction. She looked quietly elated.
    “Went well, huh?” Hugh took her arm to walk down the sidewalk to her apartment.
    “Very well. I sold everything I had. I hope Silk will be pleased.”
    “Yeah. He'll be as excited as a little kid at Christmas. He's never had any real success before. Not in anything. I can't wait to tell him.” Hugh was silent for a while, thinking. “You're really good at that kind of thing, aren't you?”
    “What kind of thing?”
    “Handling that crowd of potential buyers tonight. Showing Silk's work. Running your gallery. The whole bit.”
    “It's what I do for a living,” she said quietly.
    “Yeah.”
    “What's wrong, Hugh?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Watching you this evening just made me think about some things, that's all,” he muttered, wishing he'd never opened his mouth.
    “Like what?”
    “Never mind.” But the truth was, he was definitely beginning to worry. Mattie was very much at home in this world. She was successful in it. She had friends here. She was a part of the art community.
    Tonight he had seen just how well she moved in this environment, and the realization haunted him. Until now he had been telling himself that she would adapt easily enough to St. Gabe when the time came, but now he was beginning to wonder if the time would ever come.
    He had been so blithely certain that once he had convinced Mattie she was not just a stand-in for Ariel that she would give up everything to move to St. Gabriel.
    Now he was beginning to wonder if that would be the case. Viewed objectively, what did he really have to offer her compared to the life she had created for herself here in Seattle?
    Only himself.
    Silk was right. These weren't the good old days when a man could expect a woman to pull up stakes and follow him anywhere. Maybe Charlotte had a point when she called him arrogant.
    “Hugh? Is something wrong?” Mattie was looking up at him with worried eyes as they came to a halt in front of the door of her apartment building.
    “Nothing's wrong. Forget it, Mattie.” He opened the security door, walked Mattie down the hall, and punched the elevator button in silence. Mattie continued to throw small, anxious glances in his direction, but he ignored them. He was thinking.
    In fact, Hugh was concentrating so hard on the host of new worries that had arisen to confront him this evening that he almost failed to notice that the bolt on the front door of Mattie's apartment was not in position.
    He, himself, had locked it earlier. He never made that kind of mistake.
    Someone had opened the door tonight and failed to set the dead bolt again. Whoever it was might still be inside.
    Hugh stepped back and clamped a hand over Mattie's startled mouth to prevent her from saying anything. She went very still, her eyes widening in silent question.
    “Someone inside,” he breathed into her ear. He took his hand away from her lips when she nodded her understanding of the situation.
    Mattie mouthed a single word. “Police.”
    He shook his head and pulled her quietly along the corridor to the door that opened onto a utility room. He opened it, reached inside, and found the switch that operated the hall lights. When he flipped it, the hall outside Mattie's apartment was immediately plunged into darkness except for the pale glow of the emergency sign at the end of the corridor.
    “Hugh?” Mattie's faint whisper was now laced with anxiety.
    “Wait right here.”
    “What are you going to do? There