Identity Crisis (18 page)

Olivia walked over to a painting of the three of them sitting on the porch swing.

“I painted that for Annie’s twenty-fifth birthday. Did it from a photo. Livvy wouldn’t sit still to be painted. Used to call her a squirm worm.”

Bella painted? Just because she’d been an art history professor hadn’t meant she had artistic abilities. Many didn’t.

“Do you still paint?” Olivia asked.

“Not for years. We moved to Five Lakes when Annie was in high school. Andrew took painting lessons from me. Used this as his studio. That’s how they really got to know each other.”

“You’re very good. You should give lessons.” Bella desperately needed an interest, a purpose for living. “In fact, I could use some help. I used to dabble in painting but haven’t done much since college.”

Bella’s gaze narrowed as she appeared to consider the idea. “Suppose I could think about it. Right now, I should probably go start lunch.”

“Do you mind if I stay and look at the paintings?”

“Not at all, dear. You can easily distinguish mine from Andrew’s by our signatures.”

And by the quality of the paintings. When it came to creating original works, Bella was a much more talented painter than Olivia’s dad had been.

After Bella left, Olivia’s gaze strolled across paintings of her family, Bella, and who she recognized as her grandpa Stan from photos in the house. Her gaze eventually stopped on a door at the end of the sloped wall. Painted yellow like the walls, the door blended right in, except for a small handle. It looked like it led to a crawl space, possibly filled with more paintings. She hunched over and walked through the doorway into a room that wasn’t nearly as clean and tidy as the other one. Paintings filled the walls.

Rather than family portraits, they were lesser known works by the masters, including Pissarro and Cezanne. She walked over to a still life painting, studying its authentic appearance. She couldn’t recall ever seeing the painting, so why did it feel so familiar?

It suddenly hit her like a punch to the chest, and she gasped, sucking in some serious air.

Poires and Peches
.
Pears and Peaches
by Cezanne.

The painting’s provenance was under Olivia’s mattress at the cottage.

Her gaze darted to a landscape painting with Pissarro’s signature. She wasn’t familiar with the work, but assumed it was one of the two for which she had provenances. Bella probably had no clue that for the past twenty-four years she’d been sitting on what was now worth in the vicinity of fifty million in art forgeries.

Her dad had painted forgeries in his studio here. Right under Bella’s nose, and she hadn’t even known it at the time.

The door in the other room opened and moments later Bella appeared, crouching over as she walked through the doorway. She straightened, hand on her back. “Just remembered I have to open the museum in a little over an hour. And I have to drop something off at Hilda’s first.” She shook her head. “Can’t believe I forgot that.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to snoop.”

Bella waved away her concern. “I’d have shown you these but haven’t showed my work in years. Haven’t actually been in this room in years.”

“
You
painted these?”

Olivia’s stomach dropped.

Bella had been the forger in her dad’s scam.

“They remind me of the ones at the museum. Very high quality.”

“Andrew Donovan was my student. Suppose I rubbed off on him.” Bella massaged a nervous hand over her throat. She was a crappy liar.

“I think you painted the ones at the museum, also,” Olivia blurted out.

Bella looked ready to deny it, then let out a defeated sigh, her shoulders sagging as she wilted onto a stool. “You’re right. I did.” She placed a hand to her cheek. “Lands sake. Been keeping the secret for years. Andrew made me promise never to say anything. Said it would kill Annie if we both went to prison. FBI never knew where Andrew got the paintings from. All they cared about was putting away Vinnie Carlucci.”

This was way worse than Bella running a forgery museum. It put everything in perspective, yet the room was spinning and Olivia felt disoriented, afraid she was about to pass out.

Her grandma had been her dad’s partner in crime.

She wanted to demand how Bella could have done such an awful thing. She was no better than Olivia’s dad.

“I’ve kept you too long. I should go.”

Olivia bolted out of the studio and down the stairs, her trembling legs nearly causing her to stumble several times. She headed across the yard toward Ethan stacking pieces of split wood against the house.

She couldn’t tell him about Bella.

When she’d gone online yesterday, she’d discovered Illinois had no statute of limitations on forgery. Even though Ethan had claimed he was concerned with the present, not the past, what if he couldn’t look past Bella being the forger and she was brought up on charges? And since he felt responsible for his previous witness’s death, he wasn’t about to do anything that would jeopardize his job. He had to play things by the book. He couldn’t afford to keep information like this a secret and become an accessory. She didn’t want to put him in that position.

Even if the authorities didn’t pursue charges, what if the forgeries’ buyers caught wind of the story and pressed charges, wanting restitution they’d been unable to get when her dad had vanished twenty-four years ago? Her dad had gotten off the hook by giving the authorities Vinnie Carlucci. Bella didn’t have any bargaining power. Even if she wasn’t prosecuted, Olivia didn’t want her to go through the ordeal of this becoming public knowledge. She was much too fragile emotionally and physically. Olivia was horrified over what Bella had done, yet that didn’t mean she wanted her to die of a heart attack or end up in prison. No one could know Bella had been the forger.

Or did Roger and Kate already know?

Olivia approached Ethan, and he powered off the saw.

“Come on, let’s go,” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Bella just remembered she has to be to work at the museum.”

“Fine, just let me finish stacking — ”

“I wanna go now,” she snapped.

He cocked his head to the side, studying her. “What’s going on?”

“Fine. I’ll walk to Kate and Roger’s.” She marched off.

“Just let me put away the saw,” he called after her.

She detoured over to the SUV and hopped in. She eyed the room above the garage, praying Bella didn’t come out. Luckily Ethan returned before she did.

Backing down the driveway, he peered over at her. “Spill. Why you in such a hurry to leave?”

“Why don’t you stop playing therapist and play detective? Figure out who this bomber guy is.”

They didn’t speak the entire way into town. She felt like a total bitch for going off on Ethan like that. And she couldn’t stand keeping secrets from him any longer, even when it was for her family’s own good. She wanted an open relationship with him, yet look at her. She was being anything but open. So, although she couldn’t tell him about Bella being the forger, she could be honest about other things. And Ethan needed to know what this guy was after if he was going to protect her family.

“I was upset back there because I have some things I need to tell you, and it’s been eating away at me.”

Ethan’s gaze sharpened, unlike the soft caramel colored eyes she’d gazed into the night before. “What things?”

She reluctantly ‘fessed up about finding the provenances in Kate’s box of letters.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me about these?”

“They were for artwork he never sold. Didn’t think they were real important.”

He gave her a skeptical look. “You didn’t figure these might be what the bomber was looking for along with the paintings?”

“The provenances are from my dad’s past, so this guy is mob related, or somebody else involved in the forgery ring at the time. Maybe he found him through a U.S. Marshal snitch.”

Ethan’s grip tightened around the steering wheel, and she half expected him to rip it from the steering column. “As if
I’m
a snitch?”

She shook her head adamantly. “No, but what about Mike?”

“No way is Mike a snitch. Besides, he doesn’t have access to your dad’s case file. He doesn’t even know his real name. And how would he even have known the forgeries here existed?”

“Roy Howard.”

“I was closer to Roy than anybody, and he never said a thing to me about the paintings. If he’d known about the forgeries, he’d have taken it to his grave. We used to call him Roy Rogers. He was the epitome of what a U.S. Marshal should be.”

This was exactly the reaction she’d expected. He sounded as defensive of his ex-partner as she was of her dad.

“And no way did my dad continue his life of forgery. I knew him better than you know this Mike guy. How can you be so sure Mike’s not a snitch?”

“He worked in the FBI’s Art Crime Division for years. He had plenty of opportunity to turn dirty and didn’t. He interacted with art crooks on a daily basis. Why give up a gig like that with all those connections to become a marshal? That wouldn’t make sense if he was crooked.”

She shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t give up his connections, and he just hasn’t gotten caught.”

Ethan let out an exasperated sigh. “Anything else you wanna tell me? Let me rephrase that. Anything else you
should
tell me? I’m not passing any of this on to Mike. A marshal only discloses what’s absolutely necessary, even to a partner.”

For everybody’s safety she had to tell him about the paintings, but she didn’t have to tell him Bella was the forger. It was plausible her dad had painted them in his studio above her garage. That’s what she’d initially assumed. She took a deep breath then told him about her discovery.

The scar on his cheek twitched and his jaw tightened. “I can’t protect you, if you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you.” At least she trusted him more than she’d ever trusted anyone besides her dad. He’d certainly done enough to earn her trust. Protecting her and being her rock to lean on.

She actually felt like she might belong here. But she couldn’t imagine being here without Ethan. She couldn’t imagine being anywhere without him.

Ethan turned down the road leading to the inn. Being unable to win a witness’s trust was nothing new.

But Olivia was much more to him than a witness.

A sick feeling had wrenched his gut when she’d claimed to trust him while her look said she was still holding something back. Witnesses always had a get-out-of-jail-free card. She’d probably never completely trust him. Yet he’d never wanted to earn someone’s trust so desperately.

How had he allowed this to happen? How had she gotten him to open up like no one ever had before?

And how had he allowed her accusations about Mike to plant a seed of doubt in his mind? Because the seed had been there for days, just not firmly planted. He’d learned to never trust anyone completely, and sometimes it came down to who he trusted the
most
. And that was still Mike.

They stepped out of the SUV and headed toward Roger and Kate on the mini-golf course. Kate was dressed in a paint splattered T-shirt and shorts, painting a pyramid gold. Even with a wide-brimmed straw hat shielding her face from the sun, she was flushed, overheated from the ninety degree weather.

“Course is coming along great,” Olivia said.

“Have to start on the roof next,” Roger said, walking up.

Kate shook her head. “You’re hiring someone to do that.”

“We don’t have enough money to hire someone,” Roger snapped.

“I can do the roof,” Ethan offered.

“And I’ll help more with the course,” Olivia said.

“I appreciate that.” Roger pushed his Packers cap back and rubbed his forehead. “We don’t have any money Kate,” he said, his voice and expression softening.

Kate set down the paint brush. “I know things are tight but — ”

“Too tight to hire someone. I was telling Ethan if he and Oriana hadn’t stepped up and helped, I don’t know what I’d have done.”

Olivia shot Ethan a look that said
What the hell?
Here he’d been yelling at her for keeping secrets, yet he’d known her grandparents were in dire financial straits and hadn’t said anything. But keeping this info from her hadn’t posed a threat to her safety. He’d planned on confiding in her, just not yet. She had enough going on.

“The poor economy has had occupancy in a bit of a lull, but it hasn’t been as bad as last year,” Kate said.

“Last summer about wiped us out. Especially after the summer before that. I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”

Kate pushed herself up from the ground with labored effort, concern etched on her face. “How bad is it?”

“Pretty damn bad. Sorry I didn’t tell ya sooner.” Roger bowed his head in shame and shuffled off, leaving Kate standing there in shock.

“I had no idea,” Kate said, shaking her head slowly.

Olivia slipped an arm around Kate’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay.”

Olivia would make sure Kate and Roger didn’t lose their cottages. She’d have the money from the sale of her dad’s house and his life insurance policy. But what about Bella? Would Olivia be able to convince her to seek the therapy she needed? He had no doubt that Olivia would get over Bella running the museum, and Kate and Roger allowing her dad’s forgeries to be sold. She’d be back to see her family.

Ethan wouldn’t. He wouldn’t know what happened with Kate and Roger’s cottages a year from now, or how Bella was doing. Once the bomber was caught, he’d be onto his next job.

But this was turning out to be more than a job to him.

He’d crossed the line on this case in every way imaginable.

• • •

Olivia and Ethan spent the afternoon repairing the golf course. Late afternoon, Olivia was painting the Taj Mahal’s dome, while Ethan was fixing the tip of a pyramid the next hole over. Ethan had his shirt off, and she was finding it difficult to stay focused on the mausoleum rather than his chest, which was beginning to bronze from a few days in the sun.

Olivia’s cell phone rang out on the bench next to the hole. She snatched it up to find Rachel’s number displayed. Her stomach clenched with dread. What now?