Sharp Edges (20 page)

"We don't need a map."

She gazed around with a sense of growing unease. "All these trees. It's hard to tell which way we're walking."

"Relax. We'll be there in another few minutes."

"People get lost in the woods every year. Sometimes they're never found."

"This is an island, remember?" He looked briefly amused. "A small one, at that. The terrain slopes gradually downward to the water from the highest point. If you get lost, you just keep moving downhill. Sooner or later you'll hit Island Way Road."

She felt like an idiot. "I knew that."

"Look, if you want to change your mind about this—"

"I am not going to change my mind."

"Fine. Then we keep walking."

Eugenia decided it would be best if she kept her mouth shut for a while. Nothing intelligent was coming out of it, anyway.

The cottage came into view a short time later, a lonely, rundown cabin that should have appeared quaint and rustic, but that looked forlorn and sad, instead.
Rather like its tenant
, Eugenia thought, recalling the thin, desperate Rhonda.

Cyrus halted at the edge of the clearing.

Eugenia stopped beside him. She gazed at the small cabin. The windows were grimy, the curtains faded and tattered. The log walls needed to be restained. Bits and pieces of a low rockery indicated that someone had once attempted a garden, but the effort had been abandoned long ago.

"I only talked to Rhonda for about a minute and a half last night," Eugenia said. "But I felt kind of sorry for her."

"Yeah?" Cyrus studied the cottage from the shelter of a large fir. "Why?"

"I don't know. There was an air of desperation about her. I think she was scared."

"She had good reason. She was afraid you were about to expose her fraud."

"Yes, but the real question is, why was she trying to pass off Nellie's work as her own in the first place?"

Cyrus looked at her. "Simple. Rhonda's probably a lousy artist. She found Nellie's stuff, figured Nellie didn't need it anymore, and decided to claim it as her own."

"Maybe. Well, we're not accomplishing anything standing around out here. Let's go inside and see if we can find the other two paintings in Nellie's
Glass
series. You're the expert. How do we do this?"

"The simplest way possible," Cyrus said.

He took the lead, moving quietly through the trees until they reached the rear of the cabin. A stack of firewood, a battered plastic garbage can, and a hose guarded the door.

Cyrus went up the two wooden steps and knocked.

Eugenia frowned. "You do know how to pick locks, don't you?"

Humor gleamed in his cool gaze. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. "First, we try it the easy way." He wrapped the square of cloth around the doorknob and twisted.

Eugenia watched, astonished, as the door swung inward. "It's not locked."

"You heard what Deputy Peaceful said the night we found old Leonard. Frog Cove Island is a smalltown kind of place. Most folks don't even lock their doors." Cyrus leaned inside. "Anybody home?"

A heavy silence poured through the open door. Cyrus paused a few seconds. There was an air of stillness about him, as if he were listening to sounds that no one else could hear.

Eugenia felt herself growing increasingly tense. "What are you waiting for?"

"Nothing. Just making sure that we're alone." He walked into the cottage.

Eugenia followed quickly.

"Don't touch anything," Cyrus warned.

"Believe me, I won't." She gazed around the minuscule kitchen. It contained an ancient stove, an even older refrigerator, and a badly cracked sink. The linoleum on the floor was stained and torn.

"Very atmospheric," she said.

"Also very cheap."

"That too." Eugenia looked at him, uncertain how to proceed. "Where do we start?"

"You tell me. This was your idea."

She glared. "I've never done this before."

"Hang around with me, lady, and you will experience all sorts of new adventures. First time without a vibrator, huh?"

Heat washed through her. She knew she was turning red. So much for hoping that he had not recalled that less-than-sophisticated remark.

"I think I'll start with her studio," she said. "Every artist, even a bad one, has a studio."

"All right. Use this to open closets and drawers." He tossed her the handkerchief. "As long as I'm here, I might as well take a look at her files. I'm not having much luck with Daventry's."

She glanced down at the handkerchief. "What will you use?"

"These." He took a pair of transparent plastic gloves out of his pocket. They made snapping sounds as he molded them to his hands.

Eugenia stared. "Good grief. Sometimes you scare me."

"The feeling is mutual." He went through the door that opened onto a small living room.

Eugenia trailed after him. "What sort of files would someone like Rhonda Price have?"

"Everyone has files." Cyrus came to a halt in the center of the room. "Phone bills, credit cards, bank statements. Paperwork is as necessary to modern life as food and shelter. You can't live without it. And it always leaves a trail."

"Rather like the paperwork that provides a provenance for a work of art."

He glanced at her. "Exactly like that."

Eugenia looked around the shabbily furnished front room. There was an easel near the window. Next to it was a stand full of tubes of acrylic paints. Two old mayonnaise jars containing brushes were arranged on the table.

Rhonda Price's studio.

There were several canvases stacked against one wall. Eugenia headed for them first, wondering if she would get lucky straight off. She sorted through them quickly and saw immediately that things were not going to be as simple as she had hoped. None of the pictures bore any trace of Nellie's talent.

"You were right when you said that Rhonda was probably a lousy artist. No wonder Fenella Weeks said the painting I bought represented a new departure for her."

Cyrus studied the painting she held out. "More than just a departure."

"Yes." Eugenia looked at a poorly executed abstract scene that featured a lot of muddy colors and meaningless shapes. There was no sense of form or substance. No sensation of depth. "You know, as an experienced gallery owner who had seen Rhonda's earlier work, Fenella must have noticed the difference in technical skill as well as the new subject matter."

"For all you know, she was well aware that the painting she sold to you wasn't Rhonda's work." Cyrus eased open a drawer in the battered desk near the window. "Maybe the two of them had an arrangement."

Eugenia looked up quickly. "You mean, Fenella agreed to sell the painting, split the money with Rhonda, and not ask any questions?"

"Why not?"

Eugenia considered that. "It makes sense as far as it goes, but there wasn't a lot of cash involved. I only paid three hundred dollars for Nellie's picture."

Cyrus glanced meaningfully around the decrepit cottage. "Three hundred bucks would go quite a ways around here."

"True. Especially if Rhonda was feeding a drug habit on top of everything else. You know, Cyrus, I think I'd better have another chat with Fenella."

"What good will that do? She'll deny that she knew the painting wasn't Rhonda's. She'll just play the role of innocent gallery owner who was duped. It's not as if you caught her trying to pass off a forged Cézanne or Picasso. No one's going to be real upset about any of this."

"Except the artist's friend."

Cyrus flipped through a sheaf of phone bills he had found. "But the artist's friend has no proof that the painting she bought in the Midnight Gallery was done by anyone other than Rhonda. Another piece of free advice. Be careful before you start flinging around accusations you can't back up. In my experience, people get real ticked."

"Damn. You're right." Eugenia leaned the paintings against the wall. "This is so frustrating. All these questions and no answers."

"It's always like this at the beginning of a case," Cyrus said.

"How do you stand it? Doesn't it drive you crazy?"

"You get used to it. The key is to have patience. Lots and lots of patience."

She remembered what he'd said about being on the trail of the Hades cup for three long years. "I'm not the patient type."

The remote, self-contained expression in Cyrus's eyes slipped again. An unnerving hint of pure, masculine complacency appeared in its place.

"Yeah. I've noticed," he said.

She knew that he was recalling her enthusiastic passion last night.
Dignity
, she reminded herself bracingly. She must focus on maintaining her composure. She could be just as cool and controlled as he was. Deliberately she turned her back on him.

She wandered down the short hall and went into the tiny bedroom. An aging bed, a threadbare rug, and a sagging dresser constituted the furnishings.

She got down on her hands and knees and surveyed the floor beneath the bed. The search revealed only a stack of old art journals and some dust bunnies.

She brushed the dust off her hands, stood, and went to the closet. When she opened the door with the aid of the handkerchief, she found several paint-stained shirts and a couple of pairs of faded jeans.

The dresser drawers offered underwear, socks, and some folded sweaters.

She was about to give up in disgust when she glanced behind the dresser and saw the faint gleam of a black metal frame. Excitement flooded through her.

"Cyrus."

He came to stand in the doorway. "Find something?"

"There's a painting here." She wriggled her arm behind the dresser and groped for the edge of the frame with the handkerchief. "I can only think of one reason why Rhonda would put it back here."

"Yeah, it is kind of obvious, isn't it?"

His ironic tone annoyed her. "What do you mean?"

"It strikes me that if I wanted to hide a painting, I'd pick a more discreet location. Not some place where anyone could find it within five minutes."

"You forget, Rhonda didn't intend to hide it. Not for long, at any rate. She planned to pass it off as her own work." Eugenia dragged the painting carefully out into the open. "My guess is that she simply stored it here as a temporary measure after she ripped it off."

Cyrus studied the painting as Eugenia turned it toward him. "Well, you're right about one thing. Even to my untrained eye, that looks like your friend Nellie's work."

Eugenia examined the three enameled glass flasks arranged against the neon green background. The painting was infused with Nellie's trademark sense of light. "More items from the Daventry collection."

Cyrus frowned. "You recognize those pieces?"

"Yes. Three of the eighteenth-century Venetians. I saw them yesterday." She bent closer. "Look, Nellie's signature is still on this painting. Rhonda hasn't had a chance to alter it."

"All right, you've made your point. It does look as if Rhonda helped herself to at least two of Nellie Grant's paintings."

"And I've got the third in this series hanging in my condo. That means there's only one more to find." Eugenia drummed her fingers on the edge of the frame. "I'm going to confront Rhonda with this as soon as she gets out of the hospital. She knows something, Cyrus. I'm sure of it. I'm still afraid she'll disappear as soon as she's released."

"I told you, I'll find her if she doesn't come back to the island."

"I know, but…"

"You don't have a lot of faith in my talents, do you?"

She flushed. "I've already apologized once for my remarks on that subject."

"Don't worry, my ego is getting accustomed to being sliced and diced."

She felt her jaw tighten. "Let's be honest here, Cyrus. You've agreed to help me because you want my cooperation. But you've made it very clear that the only thing you really care about is the Hades cup."

Cold light doused the amusement in his eyes. "We have a deal." The words were shards of glass, sharp and dangerous.

Eugenia shivered. "Sorry," she said stiffly. "I didn't mean to imply that I doubted your word." Damn, damn, damn. She was apologizing to him again.

"You want a written contract?"

Her cheeks were flaming hot now. "No, forget it. I never meant… Oh, the heck with it. Let's change the subject."

"Fine by me."

Eugenia felt as if she'd had a narrow escape. This was what came of introducing sex into the situation, she thought. Everything between herself and Cyrus had become infinitely more complicated. She could not even get mad at him in quite the same way that she had before they had gone to bed together.

She took a deep breath. "I just thought of something. If Rhonda was so familiar with Glass House that she knew where these paintings were stored, she may have known other things about what went on there."

"Yeah."

The single, softly spoken word riveted Eugenia. She stared at Cyrus. His eyes were colder now than they had been a moment ago.

"Don't tell me, let me guess," she said carefully. "You're wondering if Rhonda might be able to give you a lead on the Hades cup."

"The possibility has occurred to me."

"Oh." No wonder he was so willing to help her keep track of Rhonda Price, she thought glumly. Once again, the paths that led to their individual agendas were intertwined.

Cyrus looked at her. "While you're worrying about my real motives for helping you keep tabs on Rhonda Price, there is one other thing you might want to consider."

"What's that?"

"Try this for a shot in the dark. What if Nellie Grant isn't dead? What if she's alive and working with Rhonda?"

For a second she did not think she had heard him correctly. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"It's a small island. All the artists attended Daventry's parties. It's reasonable to assume that Nellie and Rhonda knew each other."

"Yes, but what does that have to do with it? The authorities said that Nellie is dead."

"They never found a body."

"No, but…" It was too much to take in all at once. Eugenia tried to think. "Impossible. If Nellie were alive, she would have contacted me."