by Anne Stuart
No, Olivia was unlikely and Madame Antonella too old and too spacey. Though, in fact, the act had been one of almost deranged rage. Still, he couldn’t believe that Madame Antonella would ever have been able to manage it.
Which left Gia, the obvious choice. Gia, who hated Charlie and would delight in tormenting her. He bet if he looked hard enough he’d find a trace of red paint on her hands.
The question was, why? Sheer malice on her part? Did she really believe Charlie had killed the old man? If so, why hadn’t she gone to the police? Fear of scandal wouldn’t stop her—Gia would revel in the attention of the press.
Maybe it was as simple as a war of nerves. Gia was a better fighter—she had no scruples.
On impulse he headed toward the kitchen, looking for Charlie. But instead he found Tomaso and Lauretta, hard at work, and there was no sign of Charlie.
“She’s gone for a walk, Signore Maguire,” Tomaso told him. “She said she needed some time to think, and not to hold dinner for her. I wouldn’t worry if I were you. Charlie knows these hills well—she won’t get lost, even in the dark. She’ll come back when she’s ready.”
Not what he wanted to hear. At least he knew she’d be relatively safe—everyone who might want to do her harm was out drinking Pompasse’s liquor and enjoying the Tuscan evening.
Everyone, that is, but him.
His brand of Scotch was on the makeshift bar, and Gia was smoking. Two of his favorite vices, and Charlie wasn’t around to complain. He was half tempted to bum a smoke from the little bitch, except that he wasn’t in the mood to ask her any favors. He had a score to settle with her.
And the Scotch wouldn’t improve matters, either, tempted as he might be. He wasn’t about to throw away two years of sobriety at a time when he needed all his wits about him.
He headed straight for Gia. He had to admit she was damned good. She had one hand on Henry’s arm, and she was looking up at him out of her dark, melting eyes, speaking earnestly in a hushed voice. Henry was swallowing it whole, basking in her attention, and he probably didn’t even remember he had a fiancée somewhere out in the night.
“I need to talk to you,” he said abruptly.
“Certainly, old man,” Henry began.
Maguire allowed himself an irritated growl. Henry annoyed him already—his upper-class affectations made him feel downright murderous. “Not you, Henry. Gia.”
Gia was smart enough to know she was in trouble. “Maybe later,” she said airily, holding tighter to Henry’s arm. “We’re just about to go in to dinner.”
“Maybe now,” Maguire said, clamping his hand down on her wrist and removing her.
“See here, Maguire…” Henry protested.
“Don’t worry, I’ll bring her right back to you,” Maguire replied, dragging Gia off with him.
Gia was cursing him out in Italian, trying to pull back without making a scene. Olivia arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow, then turned back to her conversation with Madame Antonella, dismissing them. Maguire pulled her through the house, out the back door and into the underbrush, pushing her up against the wall.
“I thought you weren’t interested, Maguire,” she said with a silky purr.
“I’m not. Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?” She batted her eyes innocently at him, but Gia Schiavone probably hadn’t been innocent since the day she was born.
“Don’t bother trying to deny it,” he drawled. “You’re the only one smart enough and mean enough to do it. What have you got against Charlie?”
Gia stopped pouting. “Didn’t she like her little present? She was worried about the missing paintings, so when I found one of them I thought I should return it to her. I was going to drag it out onto the terrace but I thought a little discretion might be wise.”
“Very thoughtful of you. Where do you claim you found it?”
“You don’t believe me? I did find it, but I wouldn’t think of doing that to the canvas! I know the value of Pompasse’s work—I have a healthy respect for money, even if I hate that pale, overgrown little bitch. The portrait was already destroyed when I found it—slashed with a knife and splashed with paint. I guess someone else hates her as much as I do.” Her mouth curved in a satisfied smirk.
“Where did you find it?”
“You’re being awfully protective, aren’t you? What does it matter to you?” she shot back.
“I’m being protective of the paintings. It’s my job, remember? Where did you find it?”
“Near the old barn. It was propped up against the wall, as if someone wanted me to see it. Though I assumed it was Charlie who was supposed to find it. She’s the only one around here who goes for long walks. It was a fluke that I was out. But since I figured that it was obviously meant for Charlie, I decided to help things out a bit and deliver it.”
“And paint her door for good measure?”
“It was a nice touch, don’t you think?” she said smugly. Reminding Maguire just how much he hated smug little girls.
“So you think Charlie killed the old man?” he asked in a deceptively calm voice.
“I know she did.”
Her calm certainty threw him for a moment. “How?” he demanded.
“By leaving him. She took his heart with her, and he could never love anyone else.”
“Honey, I doubt he ever loved anyone in his entire life. Are you telling me Pompasse pined away, or do you mean Charlie shoved him down the stairs?”
“How could she do that?” Gia said blankly. “She wasn’t even in Italy when he died.”
“But you were. Maybe you were in Florence on the day he died. Did you push him down the stairs?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I loved him.”
“But you were being replaced, weren’t you? Maybe you went to tell him you were leaving him, and he got angry, and you struggled. It was an accident, no one was to blame,” he suggested smoothly.
But Gia had already pulled herself together. “You’re crazy. I was nowhere near Florence on the day he died. And why the hell do you care?”
“I don’t. All I care about are the paintings. I want to know where the other ones are, and I want to find his journals.”
“I can’t help you,” Gia said with an extravagant shrug of her bony shoulders. “And I would if I could. One thing you could say about Pompasse—he took care of his own. If there’s any money left then some of it will be mine. I want to make sure the full estate is valued, and I don’t like the idea of missing out on the value of those paintings.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you stole them yourself, then decided to sacrifice one for the sake of your vendetta against Charlie,” Maguire suggested. “It still leaves you with at least two priceless paintings.”
“Of Charlie.” Her venom wasn’t feigned. “Not exactly what I want. Trust me, I’m too practical. Don’t waste your time with me. Why don’t you ask Charlie where the paintings are? She knows this area better than anyone.”
He wasn’t going to get any more out of her and he knew it. Not at this point. “Go back and work on Henry some more,” he said wearily. “It’s less expensive revenge than destroying paintings.”
“And a lovely notion it is, Maguire. I’m enjoying myself tremendously.”
He watched her go, twitching her nonexistent rear, and he cursed softly. He wasn’t any further ahead than he had been before.
The problem was, he believed Gia, lying little sneak that she was. And although she admitted dragging the painting into Charlie’s room, who had vandalized it in the first place?
Who hated Charlie that much? And why?
15
It still felt peaceful in the ruined church, Charlie thought. Not even Maguire had been able to spoil it for her. Even with the old window and doors completely gone and only a small section of roof remaining, it felt like a safe, holy place.
Several of the old pews were still there, and she made her way to one of them, curling up in the corner with her feet tucked underneath her. I
t was growing dark, but she didn’t mind. Up here she felt protected, at home. Alone, which was the only way she ever had felt completely safe.
Her hands smelled like soap, with no lingering scent of paint. Logically she’d known it couldn’t be blood on the doorknob, on her hands, but her heart hadn’t listened to logic. It wasn’t until Maguire held her and washed the stuff from her hands that she finally calmed down.
How could Maguire’s touch calm her? He was the most dangerous of all. And yet for a brief moment, with his body pressed up against her back, she’d felt at peace.
She really must be losing it, she thought. Responding to a pig like Maguire and not Henry. She should do what Henry wanted. She should grit her teeth and get in bed with him, tonight, before any more time passed. It wasn’t that she couldn’t bear it. She’d survived Pompasse, even welcomed him with a certain tenderness. If the act of sex had seemed slightly messy and degrading, it had brought the old man pleasure, and for that she’d been grateful. He’d given her the first security, the first home she’d ever known. It was a reasonable trade.
She loved Henry—surely she should be able to give him that same pleasure. He didn’t expect much from her—not athletics or inventiveness, just acceptance of his body.
But ever since she’d left Pompasse she had been unable to bear a man’s touch. Her doctor had suggested that it was simply a case of Henry being the wrong man, but Charlie refused to consider that possibility. Henry was in every way the right man, the perfect man for her. It was only her own coldness that stood in the way, and sooner or later she’d get over it. She had to. Or at least learn how to fake it again.
She’d probably been far too honest with Henry, she thought, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. He was so solicitous, so careful not to make too many demands, that she felt even more guilty. There were times she almost wished he’d just grab her and kiss her.
But then, Maguire had done just that, hadn’t he? And she’d hated it.
Hadn’t she?
She leaned her head back against the battered old pew. She didn’t want to go back down to the house, but she’d have to, sooner or later. Henry would worry about her. Olivia probably wouldn’t notice, but Maguire wouldn’t leave her alone. It would take her a few minutes, but she’d pull herself together and climb back down the steep path to the farmhouse. After this morning’s ugly scene she had no intention of going by way of Madame Antonella’s place. The old lady was getting more and more confused, and Lauretta no longer seemed as capable of calming her. Had Pompasse made any arrangements for her, for the time when she could no longer live there safely? Did they have the same sort of assisted living in Italy that they had in the States? Or would she end up in some depressing nursing home, cursing everyone?
No, Pompasse wouldn’t have condemned her to a life like that. He’d always been touchingly devoted to the old lady, the first great love of his life. He never abandoned her in life—he wouldn’t have abandoned her in death, either.
Of course, Pompasse had always considered himself immortal. And, in a way, he was. His paintings would live forever, but his body had only been human, and subject to the laws of nature. He was dead, he was dust and ashes now, and in a few days those ashy remains would be buried in the vineyard.
And then maybe Charlie would finally be free.
She needed to talk more with Henry, to see what he’d done on his end. He’d been talking with the lawyers—surely he’d brought things to a point where she could just run away like the coward she was. She had missed Tuscany, missed La Colombala with all her heart and soul, but now that she was back she knew she no longer belonged here. It had been an important part of her life, but that time had passed. She needed to move forward. To find her own home.
For some reason her careful plans for the future no longer seemed so wise. New York had been a haven for five years, but it was no more home than any of the dozens of cities she’d lived in over the years. Home should be with Henry, and yet she couldn’t quite imagine it. What had happened to shake her secure belief in her self-ordained future? How could she reclaim it?
She closed her eyes. She was absolutely exhausted, her body still dealing with the vagaries of jet lag and the shock of the last few days. Someone thought Pompasse hadn’t fallen down those apartment steps he knew so well, but had been pushed by an angry hand.
But it wasn’t her—she’d been holed up in her apartment in New York. Besides, she had no reason to kill him. She’d escaped—or at least she thought she had.
Murderer, it had read, and the red paint had dripped down her door like blood. Someone hated her enough to slash through her portrait and daub it in bloodred paint. Did they hate her enough to do the same to her?
And if everyone was wrong, and Pompasse had been murdered, could that murderer want to hurt Charlie, as well?
She could think of no reason why, and the thoughts went whirling around and around in her head. The wooden pew was hard beneath her curled-up body, but she was past caring. She wrapped her arms around herself in the cool night air because there was no one else she could turn to for warmth and comfort, no one she would let hold her close and calm her. She’d go back to the house later, when everyone was asleep. She’d take off her clothes, go through the adjoining doors and climb into bed with Henry. In the same bed where Pompasse had made love to her.
And she wouldn’t say a word. Henry would think she’d been cured, and she’d never tell him the truth. She would make a safe, comfortable life for herself, with babies. She couldn’t see Henry as a father, but she could see herself with babies, fat, cheerful babies, at her breast, at her feet, crawling on the dusty floor of a place far away from cities and…
But she would always live in the city. And there’d be no dust in Henry’s household. She needed to sleep, at least for a while, before she faced up to her decision.
By tomorrow it would all be simple and clear. By tomorrow she would have slept with Henry and have no more doubts. By tomorrow…
Charlie’s houseguests were having a surprisingly good time without her, Maguire thought grumpily. They’d taken Lauretta’s explanation without question, and not even devoted old Henry seemed to miss her. Of course, he had Gia doing her best to dazzle him, and the man was easily dazzled. Though if Charlie was as cold as her mother said then the poor old guy probably hadn’t gotten laid in a hell of a long time, and Gia was pretty damned tempting.
Though for that matter, Maguire hadn’t gotten laid, either, and he hadn’t had any trouble resisting Gia’s overtures. But then, he was already distracted by Charlie, a much more complicated proposition.
It must have something to do with his cavemen ancestors, he thought, sitting in a corner watching them. The need to conquer, the need to control, the need to prove to someone like Charlie Thomas that she just hadn’t found the right man. So she didn’t like sex, right? That’s because she hadn’t let him try it.
He was full of shit and he knew it. But he couldn’t stop thinking of her. Thinking of the things he could do to her, how he could get her to react, and he was sitting there with a hard-on while the girl’s mother and a senile old lady were looking at him suspiciously, and he wished to hell he had a book or something to cover his lap. He was like some horny teenage boy, unable to control himself.
Lauretta and Tomaso were trying to get the old woman to go back to her cottage, but Madame Antonella was resisting quite loudly. “I want to stay here!” she cried. “I’m waiting for Pompasse. He promised he would come. He promised he would always take care of me.”
“Pompasse is dead, Antonella,” Olivia reminded her tactlessly. “Look at it this way—you outlived him.”
For a moment he wasn’t sure what the old lady would do. A torrent of grief and rage seemed imminent, and then to his amazement the old broad cackled. “True enough,” she said. “I’ll outlast you all.”
“Not if I can help it, you old witch,” Gia muttered, but fortunately Antonella was almost as deaf as she was
senile.
“Bring me another glass of wine, Lauretta,” Antonella commanded grandly. “We must raise a toast to Pompasse.”
It was his cue to leave. He wanted to get the ruined painting up to the old church, and he had every intention of taking a little detour by Madame Antonella’s cottage. Despite Lauretta’s insistence that the paintings couldn’t be anywhere inside that small building, he wasn’t about to take anyone’s word for it.
Once he had the painting stashed he might go for a walk himself. Not that he was worried about Charlie, of course. Everyone insisted that she knew this countryside like a native—that she was perfectly safe alone out there in the dark.
Maybe she was. But maybe Gia was telling the truth, and she wasn’t the only one who hated Charlie. And the next little surprise might be more deadly than a slashed portrait and a bucket of paint.
There was a strong half-moon overhead, lighting the way, and he’d always had good night vision. He hadn’t wanted to bother with a torch—not wanting to draw attention to his little foray. As far as he could figure out there were as many as a dozen thick journals and, at the very least, two good-size paintings still unaccounted for. They should be easy enough to find if someone had stashed them in the old woman’s house.
He set the ruined painting down at the edge of the path leading up to the church and climbed onto the flagstone terrace. For a moment he remembered Charlie’s expression when he’d caught up with her this morning. She actually looked frightened of the old lady. But then, Charlie was frightened of everything—men, sex, touching, old women, probably spiders and snakes, as well. For some reason she wasn’t afraid of being out alone at night in a place where at least one person had it in for her—but logic didn’t seem to be her strong suit. Determination, self-sufficiency were far more important to her than safety.
The house smelled like lavender and mothballs and stale urine, a less-than-intoxicating aroma. It didn’t smell of turpentine or paint, however. The rooms were so cluttered he could barely move—there were tables of knickknacks everywhere and more furniture than would comfortably fit in a place twice the size. Antonella wasn’t a small woman—he wondered how she managed to move through the crowded pathways. He glanced up at the walls, but they were bare of everything. If Pompasse had ever given his former mistress any of his paintings they were long gone.
