Intimate Portraits (9 page)

Her first and only male
photographed in an intimate setting, Fran’s pictures had been exceptional. He’d
framed the best, the poster hanging in her bedroom, before his last affair soured.
She’d gotten stuck with it.

A shame the Degardoveras took her
concern for Fran as romantic interest, but there was nothing she could do about
it.

Laney rummaged in a drawer for a
knife. “Did you remember to make reservations for the pizza place tomorrow
night?”

“Iris did, bless her. I don’t
know what I’d do without that woman. She booked for ten people like you said. Who
else is coming? Norma and Paul will make eight so…?”

Laney smirked. “You’ll see.”

Autumn didn’t bite. Laney reveled
in acting mysterious, but she never could keep a secret long.

“Great,” Autumn said. “The more
the merrier. I can’t wait to see Norma. I can’t believe she’s still with Paul.”

Norma Degardovera, notorious for
dating a man for a few weeks and then dropping him, had been with Paul for over
a month. Not yet a record, but close.

Laney, fully aware that it was
time for Norma to break off her latest romance, shot Autumn a mischievous
glance. “You like Paul? Okay, if you won’t take Fran, wait until Norma dumps
Paul and go after him. He’s attractive, he’s nice, he’s got a good job, and he’s
one of the banking Talliafierros.”

“Maybe she won’t dump him.”

“Hah. It’s been five weeks. What’s
her record, that lousy sister of mine? Six weeks? Seven? She’s like Fran. She’ll
make him fall for her and then dump him. You’ll see.” She huffed. “Paul’s too
hardheaded. He ignores us when Mom or I try to tell him how to handle her. I
like Paul, too. If he’d listen to us, he could have Norma eating out of his
hand.”

“Uh huh.” Autumn raised a brow. “If
I recall, your advice didn’t help Tyler or Abe. Not to mention Jamie and Will
and—”

Laney flapped a hand. “They were
different. No, I mean it, Autumn, hang around till she breaks up with him and
then move in. Paul’s a nice catch for someone and our Rosalina’s too young. You
might as well have him.”

Autumn put her hands over her
ears. Even Laney wanted to see her marry an outsider. “Norma’s still with him,
Laney. Maybe it’ll work out. And stop matchmaking for me.”

And for Rennie, darn Laney’s too-generous,
overly-busy heart. “None of the others are coming up?”

“No, Candela and Blanca couldn’t
get off work and Rosalina has to study for finals next week, poor baby. And
Eddie and Cristina,” she added, summing up the whereabouts of her younger
siblings, “went to Florida with Mom.”

“Since when does Reseda go to
Florida in December?”

Laney, through nibbling the ham,
used a knife in efficient strokes. “One of her older cousins from Mexico City
is visiting her daughter in Tampa, and Mom left today with the kids. She nagged
me to go, too, but we’ve had this cabin rented for months and John needs the
break. Let’s put the turkey and ham on a plate and let everyone make their own
sandwiches, okay?”

“I’ll wash the lettuce.”

“Chips, canned drinks, onions,
cheese, what else? Oh, bread. And lettuce and tomatoes.”

“And pickles. Gotta have a pickle
with a sandwich.”

“I’m right here.” Rennie had come
in quietly. “Sour face and all.”

It was hard not to light up
around him.

“Edible pickles,” Autumn said. “Not
curmudgeon pickles.”

“Need some help in here?” Victoria
was on Rennie’s heels.

Autumn dived into the
refrigerator to search for lettuce.

“Yes.” In the kitchen, Laney became
a drill sergeant. “Victoria, get out the plastic plates and cups on the shelf
there. Rennie, silverware’s in that drawer. And open that pack of napkins over
there. Mayonnaise and mustard are in the fridge. So’s the potato salad.”

“I knew there’d be drudgery
involved,” Rennie muttered, but, accustomed to indulging the women in his
family, he obeyed with his usual good humor.

Autumn arranged the lettuce,
pickles, and cheese before adding sliced tomatoes and onions to the platter. “Should
I mayonnaise the bread?”

“Let us do our own.” Rennie didn’t
look up from putting ice in plastic cups. “We’re capable adults.”

“Oh? Do you know something I don’t?”
She was rewarded by the slow lift to one corner of his mouth.

After supper, Autumn joined the
others in a raucous game of Chicken Foot dominoes under the tall ceiling of the
cabin’s great room. Red and gold flames played and flung their iridescent glow
through the glass doors of a wood-burning stove. Scents of hot chocolate and
cider and roasted marshmallows floated overhead.

When the game was done, and
people were yawning and stretching and making drowsy noises, Autumn moved to
stand by herself in front of the fire. The lovely scent of burning cedar filled
her nostrils.

She shouldn’t have come. Not with
Rennie here.

Her mood made her the first to retire
as he and Victoria engaged in low conversation interspersed with chuckles. She
brought her toiletry kit downstairs and brushed her teeth in the one bathroom
before going back up to the room she would share with Victoria. Even after she
lay down on one of the full beds, she couldn’t sleep. Victoria’s clear tones
blended with Rennie’s low murmur to drift up the stairwell.

What was he saying to make
Victoria laugh like that? And what was Victoria saying to keep him talking?

Autumn put her pillow over her
head.

Not until midnight did Victoria
creep into the bedroom and climb into the bed beside Autumn’s. Soon, Rennie’s
soft footsteps came up the stairs to the room across from theirs.

Autumn, trying her best to block
out his movements, wished the walls weren’t so thin. Light from his room
filtered beneath her door, momentarily glazing the coverlet and wall but
vanishing before bedsprings across the hall creaked.

She would give anything to have
been born a different person. Gregarious, vivacious, personable. Unafraid.

As Jane had been.

Like Victoria was.

****

Around midnight, as Autumn
pretended to be asleep in Helen, an Atlanta police car slowly cruised through
the strip mall housing the studio. When it disappeared, Sam Bogatti, parked
across the street, wrapped his gum and stuck it in his litter bag. Then he
cranked his van.

At the back of the strip mall
shops, a shiny new deadbolt protected the studio door, but the alarm system
hadn’t been rewired. Twenty seconds found Sam inside with his five-gallon jug
of gasoline.

He shone a penlight on the
counter. There it was, the message pad the receptionist had looked at when she
talked about Autumn Merriwell going to Helen. He ripped off the top page with
its name and phone number, then pocketed it.

A few heavy filing cabinets in a
back room screamed “fireproof” but weren’t locked. He emptied thousands of CD-ROMs
into a pile in the middle of the floor before pulling out the drawers of
regular office file cabinets filled with negatives.

Old negatives, but no sense taking
chances. He dumped them, too, then added the cameras in case one had Sarita’s
images.

After soaking the stack with
gasoline, he threw a lighted match. That would take care of stuff here. Bernie’s
computer guy would deal with the backup at AllSet if he hadn’t already.

“Sayonara, Sarita,” he muttered
as the flames jumped up with an ominous hiss. “Too bad they won’t have those
pictures to remember you by. You sure did have something.”

This job sucked. He was going to
have to get out of the business soon. Maybe in a few more years he could.

As alarms trilled, he quit the
building and parked back at the crowded restaurant across the street where he could
watch.

Six minutes brought out the sirens.
Eight minutes later, flashing red lights and trucks squealed into the strip
mall. Men jumped out to start unwinding hoses.

By then, the fire had caught hold
and a crowd had gathered.

Flames broke through the studio
roof and licked at the night sky before streams of water began to feed into
their midst. Smoke swirled and eddied. Flickering orange tongues spewed out
tiny particles of ash caught and driven by the wind to taint clothes and skin
and lungs.

The smell infiltrated his van. Sam
reached for his pack of gum.

Okay, that worked out great. The
photography studio was gone, but looked like the blaze was contained, in no
danger of spreading to the lounge or drug store at the far end.

Good. He’d hate to be responsible
for destroying somebody’s livelihood or getting innocent bystanders killed.

Sam was pretty softhearted.

He put the new stick of gum in
his mouth and grimaced. No substitute for tobacco. He’d been thinking about
quitting for a while, but his wife’s bitching was what did the trick. That and
her cough every time they went to bed. He’d figured he better go cold turkey
and get it over with.

Ten months now, but he still
wanted a cigarette.

The same way he wanted to be at
home, curled up in bed against his wife’s butt and looking forward to his kid’s
hockey game tomorrow.

Tough.
Ain’t gonna happen
.
He pulled his jacket tighter.

You had to take life as it came.

He’d call in the morning and get
directions to this Helen restaurant, but there was no rush. Nobody’d find Sarita
till her mother and stepfather got back from their trip to the islands on
Monday. Plenty of time to finish the job.

Things were coming together. He
knew where the photographer would be at tomorrow night. He’d find her, take her
out by Sunday at the latest, be long gone by Monday. If he headed straight home
from Helen, he wouldn’t have to go through grimy Hotlanta.

Enough of this shit. His whole
head was clogged up from the ash. He cranked the van.

The next thing was to find a
motel for what was left of the night. Preferably one that offered movies on
demand. A nice comedy or relationship movie.

All those action films had way
too much violence to suit him.

Chapter 7

After a restless night focused on
Rennie in his room a few feet across from hers, Autumn was the first one up
Saturday morning. The coffeemaker, once readied and turned on, began to deliver
its inviting aroma. She filled a cup from the hot stream, and then took it to
the living room.

The draperies were closed from
the past night, but she pulled one back from the tall windows to enjoy the
vista of trees, sunshine, and the lake sparkling in the distance.

Branches of low-lying laurels quivered.
She stilled. Something or someone was out there, coming toward the cabin.

A wild animal?

Yes. In plain view on the lake
trail below the cottage, a deer with spotted chest and white ears and horns,
its coat burnished by a beam of gold early morning light, trotted confidently
through the underbrush.

Oh, pretty! She barely breathed,
scared he’d look up and see her spying from the window and run, but the buck
came on without haste, oblivious or uncaring. Three more, a doe and two
half-grown fawns, followed in quick succession, strolling up the trail as
though it were their private domain.

No time to get to her camera. If
she moved, they’d spook.

Before the graceful creatures passed
out of sight around the cottage, they stopped. She shrank back out of view but
bumped into an unyielding bulk.

Rennie. She smelled his woodsy
scent, recognized his presence before he spoke. “It’s all right, they haven’t
seen us.”

His hands, below her shoulders,
held her against him and warmed her through her sweater.

His whisper grazed her ear. “There’s
something on that little knoll, see? Maybe a salt lick. Or a plant they like.”

She did see it. She concentrated
on seeing it, on forgetting his chest touching her back, his hands on her arms.

The doe reached out a supple neck
to munch on some shrub or grass out of sight behind the rhododendrons.

The deer. Don’t think about Rennie.

Even if his chest did rub her
back with each breath. That and his heat and his Rennie odor made the desire
inside her rise to a physical ache nearly impossible to contain.

Over the hammering of her heart,
she heard footsteps, and Laney’s hushed whisper: “What are you two up to?”

“Watching the animals at
breakfast. Be quiet and scoot over here.” Rennie stealthily shifted so that
Laney could slip in. He left one arm around Autumn and draped the other around
his sister and the three of them stood in silence, watching as the marvelous wild
creatures ate their fill and sauntered out of sight.

“Well.” Autumn was the first to
exhale and disengage herself from the marvelous civilized creature beside her. “What
a beautiful way to start the day.”