Frame Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 5) (10 page)

“She can be, yes.”

“And I think—we all think—that she may have felt more alone than she really was. So, a phone call…”

“Just wouldn’t have been enough?”

“Exactly.”

“And your mission is…”

“As you may have guessed. I’m here on behalf of the ‘friends of Carol,’ all of whom wish to talk her into returning to Chicago.”

It was Nina’s turn to shake her head:

“Well, I wish you luck. We’ve all come to be very close to Carol. Nobody in town wants to see her leave.”

“I can understand that. But a small town such as this…”

“Sure. Ultimately, it’s going to get boring for her.”

“Or perhaps not. I don’t know. At any rate, the last thing I wish to do is drive her into a corner. If she wishes to stay, so be it. But it’s very important for me to see her, and simply tell her how many people wish her well. And, of course, to give her the cards, and the stuffed dogs—and a picture of the woman who fired her with obscene words written across it!”

More mutual laughter.

“If you don’t mind my asking you…” began Nina.

“No, not at all!”

“I couldn’t help noticing your accent.”

“I’m Swiss. I grew up in Geneva, but my family moved here when I was eight years old. To New York. I went to business school at Columbia University.”

“My.”

“Yes, it’s a very good school. And, I must say, I do miss New York. Someday I shall probably return there.”

“But without Carol.”

“Alas, it seems so.”

“The farm girl.”

“True, the farm girl. But I do not wish to trouble you further. Is Carol at present…”

“She’s at my place. There’s a map of Bay St. Lucy over there on the wall; I’ll point it out to you. You can’t miss it.”

“You’re very kind.”

“Not at all. And I’m sure Carol will be thrilled to see you.”

“I hope. I hope.”

And so Nina showed Michael the directions to her shack.

And so she said good bye to him and watched him drive off in a rental car.

And so she had herself another cup of coffee.

He was a nice young man, and would have made a fitting husband for Carol Walker, she told herself.

Perhaps he yet would be.

The drive down, all the way from Chicago…

…yes, perhaps he yet would be.

Then she got up and began to putter around the shop, bathing in warm expectations that someday she and Margot might attend a wedding in Chicago.

She prided herself on an instinctual grasp of human nature.

And seldom had she felt such a closeness, such a positive sympathy for another person.

So she kept on puttering, having no idea that everything ‘Michael’ had told her had been a complete and utter lie.

Carol loved walking along the beach.

A pure child of the mountains, she’d never had the chance to experience the ocean before. There had been Europe, true, but her time there had been spent mostly in major cities such as Vienna, Rome, or Madrid.

But now she had time on her hands—a relatively new experience for her—and the sea beside her, the blue green ever surging, imminently alive and immortally evolving sea, which she found herself remarkably sympathetic to. She felt at home beside it. And in the same way she could not stop walking when she was in Paris—one quarter sucking her out from another and into its own personality, until the soles of her feet were blistered—in just that way, she could not turn around and go back home, go back to Nina’s shack, go back to the few errands she’d been placed in charge of, go back to Bay St. Lucy, and to Elementals for her afternoon’s work.

On this particular day, she knew she would be late.

Not that Nina would mind, of course. Not that the big smile would be any smaller, or the enthusiasm upon seeing her any less.

How lucky she’d been to find this place!

She relived the days since her firing as she trudged back along the hard-packed and foam-traced sand, the shack itself now looming before her some half mile distant.

The boxes, the boxes…

Rebecca Simpson.

The chicken.

Her presentation at The Auberge des Arts, extraordinary place that it was.

Then the need for money.

And her first trip to Graz.

Carol the mule.

How easy it had been!

There would be more trips now, she knew. Michael had made that clear. Perhaps one per month, perhaps one every two weeks. But she was to expect no more problems than she’d encountered on the first trip. And she would be receiving another impossibly large cashier’s check with each venture.

Danger?

No. Michael had made that clear.

Who would want to hurt her?

And as for the paintings themselves, she had not stolen them. Nor had Michael, for that matter. They were simply out there in the universe, a strange cosmos of stolen art, drifting with the gravity of rich people’s wealth from one secluded mansion to another. This phenomenon would not change, whether she had anything to do with it or not. What would change was her bank account.

And the day when she could go back to Georgia.

She reached the foot of the stairs leading up to the bungalow.

It was a bungalow, wasn’t it?

No. With gray wood peeling, and screen door half torn, it was still a shack.

And thinking with amusement how much she loved it despite its dilapidation, she made her way up the creaking stairs, watching a pelican perched precariously on a pole sticking out of the shallow tide some fifty yards up the beach, and listing as a low cloud of gulls scudded over the incoming surf.

She opened the door.

The tidy living room welcomed her, as did Furl, who padded noiselessly across the hardwood floor and rubbed inquiringly against her ankle.

Are you still the same person you were yesterday evening?

I mark you as my property.

Coffee.

She needed coffee.

And so, single-minded, not even looking out on the deck or at the ocean beyond, the storms possibly coming up in the eastern sky, the oil rig close to shore—she attacked the coffee maker, opened the refrigerator, got milk, made the first cup quite strong, drizzled white liquid into it, set it on a cup, breathed deeply, took a first delicious sip, and turned to go out on the deck.

Where, at the table on the deck’s center, Michael was sitting.

“Hello.”

She stood as though paralyzed in the doorway.

What was he doing here?

The pelican on the pole in the ocean had as much right to be here, on Nina’s deck, on her own deck, as did Michael.

Michael was Chicago.

Actually, Michael was indeterminate cities and indeterminate nationality and indeterminate vocation and indeterminate future or past––a shadow and nothing more.

But now the shadow was impinging on the clear blue watery light of her own private world.

“The door was open. I hope you did not mind.”

She simply stared at him, chastising herself for her own inability to speak.

“Actually, Carol, you should probably be more careful. It’s a dangerous world we live in, you know.”

She found herself, an automated figure, moving on slow creaking gears and tank treads across the floor of the deck, until she was standing before him, looking down at him.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m not unwelcome, I hope.”

She knew nothing to say to that.

Of course, he was unwelcome.

What if Nina learned of his existence?

But that would never happen, of course.

Michael was too smart to let that happen.

“I have just met your friend, Nina.”

Oh God.

What was going on here?

She watched, as the automaton she’d become seated itself and continued to stare open-mouthed across the table.

Nothing, she said.

And nothing was what came out of her cave-opened mouth.

So Michael was forced to continue:

“She’s a charming lady. You’re lucky to have found a home here. And I must tell you—this may work out for the best, for all of us. Now. May I have a cup of coffee?”

She nodded, still uncertain of what might come out if she tried to speak.

Then she went back into the kitchen to find another cup and pour it.

Then she returned it to Michael, faintly aware as she did so that she was still physically attracted to him.

Why in heaven’s name was that?

No knowing about such matters, of course. But his smile, his strawblond hair, his casual white shirt open at the neck, and the dark green scarf he wore that set him off, made him a denizen of another continent—no, she was attracted to him, no doubt about it.

He took the coffee and gestured around the deck.

“These paintings? They’re not yours, I hope.”

She shook her head.

“No, they’re Nina’s. She and several other ladies of Bay St. Lucy are taking art lessons.”

“They’re dreadful.”

“They’re not so…”

“They’re dreadful.”

“All right. They’re dreadful. But doing them gives her great pleasure.”

“And me.”

She looked at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“I think we might use them.”

“Use them? How? And by the way, Michael, what the hell are you doing in Bay St. Lucy? Did you bring a painting? Do I have another trip to make?”

He shook his head:

“No, not now.”

“Why not?”

“That’s part of the reason I came down. We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“About your trips to Graz.”

“Have I done anything wrong?”

“No. But they shall have to stop for a time.”