Seeing Red

by Dana Dratch

  “Really,” Trip said.

  “Could Harkins have gone back and moved him?” I asked. “Without telling you?”

  “Harkins can’t go near the inn. It’s too dangerous. When he needs stuff, he sends one of us. And none of us’ll go near that freezer.”

  “The other day? In Harkins’s room? When I found the art?”

  “I was in the closet,” Gabby said with a small smile. “I didn’t have time to lock the door behind me when I heard you coming up the stairs.”

  “You scared the crap out of me!”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, patting my hand. “I wanted to tell you so bad. Oh jeez, if Bell’s body is gone, that’s bad. Really bad.”

  “Why can’t Harkins go near the inn?”

  “In case Blair sends someone else.”

  “He knows Harkins works there. Does he know who Ian is to Harkins?”

  She shook her head. Gabby’s hairdo—likely a wig from her extensive collection—was shoulder length, golden blond, and teased on top. Gabby loved her wigs.

  But something was bugging me. And it wasn’t Gabby’s hair. Harkins was acting like a man who was protecting someone. If it wasn’t Ian, who was it? Or was it the art?

  “Has Harkins finished copying the art?”

  “Almost,” she said. “But not yet.”

  “So the stuff at the inn? In Harkins’s study?”

  “Copies,” she said with a little smile.

  “Damn,” I said. “He’s really good.”

  “One of the best,” she said proudly.

  If Harkins hadn’t completed the paintings, Blair wouldn’t kill him. Blair needed those copies. But after? That was a different story. And it could already be open season on anyone Harkins loved. They would be collateral damage. Or leverage.

  “Who is Harkins protecting?” I asked.

  Behind us, I heard footsteps. I turned and saw a blonde in a turquoise midi dress in the doorway. Big-boned, with a deep tan, sandals, and a flower in her messy up-do, she looked like a fifty-plus hippie. Her eyes were wide. She looked scared.

  I looked at Gabby. She gave the woman an encouraging smile and pulled out the chair next to hers.

  “Alex, Trip, I want you to meet Daisy. Daisy, these folks are my friends. My family, really. You can trust them with your life.”

  Chapter 43

  “Is it Alistair? Is the bairn all right? Tell me, please!” She pleaded in a soft Scottish burr, as she looked from me to Gabby.

  “Alistair’s fine,” I said. “How do you know about him?”

  She pulled back, as if someone had hit her in the face. Or the heart.

  “Daisy is Alistair’s mom,” Gabby said. “Didn’t you get the note?”

  “Lucy ate it. Well, most of it. She hid the rest. When I found it, all we could make out was that Ian was Alistair’s father.”

  “He’s naught of the kind,” Daisy said, indignantly.

  Gabby giggled and patted her arm. “Not Ian. Harkins. Alistair is Ian’s brother.”

  Now my mouth made that O.

  “Alistair is doing great,” Trip said, stepping in while my mind slipped into a coma. “Alex and Nick’s grandmother, Baba, is really good with babies. And she’s staying with them to take care of the little guy. She’s crazy about him. Sings to him, rocks him, takes him for walks in the pram. And he loves her.”

  Daisy put her head on the table and started to cry softly. I didn’t know if it was relief or something else.

  Neither did Trip, who looked as if he wanted to bolt from the room. Instead, he pulled a neatly folded linen handkerchief from his pants pocket and handed it across the table.

  Daisy accepted it and tried to compose herself while Gabby patted her back.

  “I’m so glad my wee one is all right,” she managed. “Grateful. But l need ta be with ’im. He shouldn’t be without ’is mum.”

  “He’s missed you something fierce,” I said finally. “The first couple of days, he wouldn’t stop crying. That’s why we had to call in Baba. And regular formula doesn’t agree with him. She started using one with goat’s milk. So that part’s better. But I can tell he misses you. Sometimes he looks at us like ‘who are these people?’ He’s really bonded with Ian, though. Those two get along great.”

  Daisy dabbed her eyes and nose with Trip’s hanky, clutching it tightly in her right hand. “Aye, thank you,” she said. “For taking ’im in and for loving ’im. I’m just bein’ selfish. Bein’ without ’im is like losin’ a part of my own body.”

  “You’re who Harkins is protecting,” I said quietly. “You and Alistair.”

  Gabby nodded.

  “Ian doesn’t know,” I ventured.

  Gabby shook her head. “Not if he hasn’t read the note.”

  “We wanted to tell him in person,” Daisy said softly. “And we were supposed to be married. Long before now.” She started crying again. She took a couple of deep breaths, trying to compose herself.

  “But that man . . . that devil. At first, it was just lie low for a while. Now it’s like we’re being hunted.”

  “I guess saying ‘no’ to Blair was out of the question,” I said.

  “For a couple of reasons,” Gabby began. She paused, studying Daisy.

  Daisy nodded, then blew her nose. That handkerchief was a lost cause.

  “Harkins works with some people,” Gabby explained. “Artists, art experts, museum people, thieves, and some law-enforcement guys. Nothing official. Just a loose group. From all over the world. They return looted art. Mostly stuff the Nazis grabbed.”

  At the word “thieves,” my ears pricked up. “Through slightly . . . less conventional means?” I asked.

  Gabby’s blond head bobbed up and down. “When there’s a chance, they’ll create a copy. A perfect copy. Then it’s switched. And the family gets back the real art that was stolen years ago.”

  “And the person who had the art... ,” Trip said sotto voce.

  “Never knows there was a switch,” Gabby finished.

  “That’s why Harkins took this job,” I tested. It was a statement and a question.

  Gabby nodded. “A few of Blair’s paintings? He got them from people who snatched them during World War Two. Blair’s washed the paperwork. Really well. Looks like a series of normal sales.”

  “But they’re not,” Trip said.

  “They’re so not,” Gabby said, shuddering.

  “Has Blair discovered Harkins’s, ah, art affiliations?” he asked.

  Gabby shook her head vigorously. “No, sugar. But he’s paranoid. And really control-freaky. He thinks Harkins is pulling the job all by himself. Making the copies and breaking in to do the switch. But he’s not.”

  Daisy sighed deeply. “Cecil’s an artist. A verrah talented artist. He hasn’t done a forgery in decades. Not for himself. Since ’e got out of prison as a young man. That one was a stupid mistake. Almost a dare. And ’e paid for it. Hasn’t stopped payin.’ That alliance? Returnin’ what people lost? What they had ripped away? That’s my Cecil. The real Cecil. And ’e’s been doing it now most of his life.” A smile flickered on her lips. “His paintings hang in museums all over the world. And private collectors? Rich men with looted art they keep in secret? A lot of those, too. Blair doesn’t know Cecil. Just wants ’is copies. And then that devil plans to kill him.”

  “But if Harkins is going to return those paintings to the rightful owners, there isn’t just one set of copies,” I said. “This time, there are two.”

  Gabby’s head bounced up and down.

  “Three paintings in that brute’s collection have been hidden for decades,” Daisy explained. “Now ’e was actually inviting Cecil in—givin’ ’im access. ’E couldn’t say no. Didn’t want to. Called it ‘a golden ticket.’ That’s what Cecil said to me, the ould fool. ‘This is a golden ticket, Daisy, my girl. And we’ll be relievin’ that prat of his gold.’ Then Bell showed up. Aye, that was bad. We didn’t know what to do. I was at the inn. Under another name. Had
just arrived with the bairn in the wee hours of that mornin’.”

  “The ghost baby!” I exclaimed. “That was Alistair!”

  Daisy looked puzzled. Gabby grinned.

  “It’s an old legend,” Gabby said. “We just borrowed it. But the next day, Bell showed up. Harkins knew it was too dangerous for Daisy and the baby to stick around. So he started making plans to move them. Next thing we knew, Bell was dead, and we had to jump quick.”

  “That was the night of the party,” I breathed. “And the big storm.”

  “Harkins wanted Daisy and Alistair to leave—go back to Scotland and wait for him,” Gabby confessed, dropping her voice. “But she wouldn’t go.”

  “You can bet the Queen’s bloomers I wouldn’t go,” Daisy said firmly. “I’m not abandonin’ meh man. That ould goat was goin’ to sacrifice himself. To save us. Not while there’s breath in meh body!”

  I looked at Trip. He smiled.

  “I told Cecil I was stayin’ with ’is crew,” Daisy said, with tears streaming down her face. “But we both knew it would be too dangerous for Alistair. If we got caught, ’e could end up with the state. Or worse, if Blair’s men found us. But Cecil knew a place where the wee bairn would be safe.” Her voice cracked. “And loved.”

  We all sat quietly until Daisy inhaled a couple of quick breaths and resumed talking. “So I wrote the note, explainin’ everythin.’ And we left Alistair at your house.”

  “Then I slipped into the inn, dressed in Daisy’s disguise—a hat and scarf and big sunglasses,” Gabby said. “And she and Harkins went to separate houses nearby. I stayed a few more days, so it didn’t look too suspicious. You know, somebody leaving the minute Bell vanished. But I locked myself in the room the whole time. I even hid in the bathroom when Ian brought up the food trays. Then, after a couple of days, I called the front desk and said I was checking out. Harkins had taken care of booking Daisy. Just putting a name in the computer, really. And Ian had never met her. But in person, I was afraid he might somehow recognize me.”

  “Gabby, Nick was working in the kitchen!”

  “I know!” she said, putting both hands to her forehead. “I was a basket case! I thought for sure I was gonna get caught. And you kept popping up, too.”

  “The rumor was, you were an actress recovering from plastic surgery,” I told her. “‘A little nip-tuck,’ one of the guests told me.”

  Gabby flashed a smile.

  “Did anyone leave a note for Ian?” I asked. “At the inn?”

  “It was too dangerous to leave anythin’ at the inn,” Daisy said. “The note we left at your house was for you and Ian.”

  “And Lucy ate it,” I said, looking at the puppy, who—exhausted from three very long walks today—had finally curled up and fallen asleep at Gabby’s feet.

  “How did Harkins know where to go?” Trip asked. “Which houses were vacant?”

  “At the inn, he chats with everybody all the time,” Gabby said. “Delivery guys, mailmen, water and power workers. Invites them in for coffee and pastries, too.”

  “So they nosh and gossip, and he learns which neighbors are going away and when?” Trip said.

  My former almost sister-in-law nodded.

  Ian had done the same thing with me. Was that just another ploy?

  “Gabby, how did you get mixed up in this?” I asked. “Did Harkins send for you? Does he know you?”

  “No, sugar,” she said, sighing. “Not before this. The guy they needed is a friend of a friend in Vegas. But he wasn’t available. And wouldn’t you know it, having an extra woman on this thing was a big plus.”

  “So what’s the plan now?” I said, practically dizzy.

  “Harkins will finish the art, and we’ll help him deliver it,” Gabby said. “Then he’ll disappear with Daisy and Alistair. Blair doesn’t know about the rest of us, so we just go back to our lives.”

  Daisy wiped her nose with the crumpled remains of Trip’s handkerchief. “Even if we ’ave to ’ide for the rest of our lives, at least we’ll be alive and we’ll be together.”

  I wondered what Ian would think of that. Now that he finally had a relationship—and a business—with his dad, Harkins was going to leave again. This time, with his other family.

  * * *

  Daisy and Gabby gave me their blessing to tell Ian that Harkins was alive and well.

  But not where he was. Or even that I knew where he was.

  I made the argument for continuing to—temporarily—let Ian believe Alistair was his. No one knew Harkins was Ian’s father. So as long as the little guy was a Sterling instead of a Harkins, he had another layer of protection from Blair.

  We’d also agreed to keep Nick in the dark. I concurred, but I still felt awful.

  Nick already knew about the art, Harkins, Insurance Guy (now the killer formerly known as Bell), and Blair. Basically, as long as Nick understood the inn was still a hot spot for murder and mayhem, that’s really all he needed to know.

  And telling him that the woman he’d loved (and lost) had been mere steps away as he toiled in the kitchen would be cruel. Almost as cruel as telling him she was camping out just around the block.

  By the time we finally left, it was already dark. All the better to keep from being seen.

  “I earned my galettes this evening,” Trip said, as he cradled a snoozing Lucy on our walk home. I fielded the pooper-scooper. But I never had found that stupid Frisbee.

  Let the neighbors wonder about that one when they got home.

  We overshot my block and doubled back. Just to make sure we weren’t being followed. I figured we had to take precautions if we were mixing it up with former felons on the lam, thieves, and art forgers.

  And those were just the criminals on our side.

  Chapter 44

  Early the next morning, after three very strong cups of coffee, I finally got Lucy to the dog park.

  She loved the place. And the dogs. The agility course was a mixed bag.

  Lucy ran around it at top speed. And she was fast. She dashed up and down the fixed ramps and raced through the tunnels like a pro. But the weave poles confused her. And when the teeter-totter shifted, she planted her plump puppy rump and refused to budge.

  No amount of coaxing could get her to move.

  I tried the high, happy voice. Nothing.

  I tried softly calling her name. Nope.

  She just stared into me with those big dark eyes. So I gently lifted Lucy from her perch and deposited her lightly onto the ground.

  Time enough to learn this stuff when she was older. Besides, isn’t knowing when to ask for help a sign of maturity? If so, the pup was advanced well beyond her years.

  On the walk home, I so wanted to take a turn past Magnolia Circle to visit Gabby and Daisy. But that would be too risky. For them and for me.

  Besides, this morning I was meeting with Ian.

  Nick and his galettes had an audition at a mom-and-pop sandwich place just outside Georgetown. And I was taking advantage of his absence to give Ian the good news about Harkins. Leaving out the part about him disappearing forever in the near future.

  I thought if I served coffee on the porch, we could at least have a little privacy.

  Or whatever passed for privacy at my house these days.

  As Lucy and I hit the sidewalk in front of my house, I spotted Nick coming out the front door. Lucy strained at the leash. When I unclipped her, she dashed pell-mell for the porch. And her guy.

  “Wish me luck!” Nick said, galloping down the walkway and meeting her halfway.

  He must have been serious about snagging this client. He was wearing a navy sports jacket, dress pants, and a tie. I looked down at his feet.

  Hard shoes.

  Definitely going for broke. I didn’t even know he owned leather shoes. The only time Nick wasn’t barefoot, he wore flip-flops or sneakers.

  “You too, little girl,” he said, bending to give Lucy a good-luck pat. “Your daddy’s going out to make us some money for
lots of puppy food! And bacon!”

  “You’ll do great. If you’d had any leftovers, you could have sold them to Trip last night.”

  “Depending on how this morning goes, I may have to,” he said, giving the pup a full-on tummy scratch.

  “Your stuff is wonderful. If they don’t buy it, they’re nuts.”

  “That’s the main ingredient in the second batch,” he said. “Lemon and coconut. I call them ‘tropical tartlets.’”

  “You’re stalling. Go. Expand your business and come back with good news.”

  “With my shield or on it. Check.”

  Which reminded me. “And if you hit the pet supply store on your way home, Lucy needs a new Frisbee,” I called after him.

  From the driveway, Nick turned and gave a mock salute, before disappearing into his Hyundai.

  When I walked into the kitchen, Baba was burping Alistair on her shoulder. He might be a little baby, but he could belch like a trucker after a fried chicken dinner.

  “Da, da!” she said approvingly, after Alistair shared his best efforts. Then she carefully turned him over and gently lowered him into her lap. She sang quietly, stroking his chubby cheek.

  Alistair really wanted to stay awake. His eyelids struggled mightily. And dropped. Pretty soon, he was snoozing in her arms. It might have been my imagination, but he already seemed a little bigger than when he’d first arrived. He occupied a bit more of her lap. Thanks to Baba, the little guy was thriving.

  “Hey, how about I make us some breakfast?” I said. “Nick mentioned bacon on his way out, and it made me hungry. I was thinking I could scramble some eggs to go with it.”

  “Da, cheese eggs,” Baba said brightly.

  “Cheese eggs it is.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Marty said, strolling in freshly showered and shaved. I could smell Nick’s cologne across the kitchen. And he was wearing one of Nick’s University of Arizona sweatshirts with the cuffs rolled up. Even so, it swam on him.

  “You want I should throw some bread in the toaster?” he asked.

  “Go for it!”

  Pretty soon, we were dishing up big plates of cheesy scrambles, crispy bacon, and buttered toast. Jars of marmalade and strawberry jam littered the table.