The Stroke of Winter(31)

“Nothing?”

“No evidence to suggest any animal had been in there.”

Her father was silent for a moment.

“Tess,” he said, his voice soft and low. “What are you calling to tell me?”

This caught Tess off guard. What an odd thing to say, she thought. It was as though . . . Did he know what was in the studio? Had he known all along?

“Dad,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Did you know that room pretty well?”

“Of course,” he said. “I was rarely allowed in there when I was a boy—that was the artist’s private lair—but I knew that was where he painted. He spent most of the day, and night, in that studio when he was working on a new painting. I didn’t agree with your grandmother, you know. About closing it up. What she said about the heat—we all knew that was silly. I personally think it was just too painful for her to see it, after he died. Too many memories. That studio was his heart and soul, where he created his masterpieces.”

“I found five of them.”

It was as though the air had been sucked from the room.

“What?” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

“Five paintings,” Tess said. “They were in the little bathroom off the main room, stacked together, facing the wall.”

Tess heard her father gasp.

“Honey,” Indigo called to his wife, his voice harsh, “Tess found five of Dad’s paintings.”

“Whaaaaat?” Tess heard her mother say.

“The room was in complete disarray,” Tess went on. “Wine bottles everywhere. Papers. Glasses. Nothing had been cleaned up. It was as though Grandma had just—”

“Honey,” he said, breaking into her words. “I’m going to stop you there. Did anyone else see them? The paintings, I mean. I imagine you had workmen there to get the door open.”

“Yes, I had workmen, and no, nobody has seen the paintings. Nobody knows about them except Eli. I called him last night.”

“Good,” Indigo said. “This should go without saying but—”

“I know,” Tess said. “I’m not about to tell anyone else about this.”

“You know the wall safe in the drawing room?” Indigo said. He was referring to a rather large wall safe hidden behind a bookshelf that swung open. It was really more of a small room than a safe, built by Indigo years ago to hide valuables during the off season. Like paintings.

“Yes, I know it, but not the combination,” Tess said.

“I’m going to send it to you. Put the paintings in the safe. Right now, honey. Hang up the phone and do it right now.”

“But, Dad,” Tess said, “I wanted to ask you about—”

“Nothing else is important at this moment, honey,” Indigo said. “Get those paintings into the safe, and then call me back.”

“Okay, Dad,” Tess said. “I will.”

But he had already hung up. A moment later, a text message from him came through. A series of numbers and symbols. The combination to the wall safe.

Tess hurried up the stairs and to the studio door. After her odd experience the previous night, she was none too excited to go back inside, but she shoved the steamer trunk out of the way, her “alarms” falling to the floor and clanging as she did so.

Everything was as it had been when she left the previous night. She held her breath and walked across the room to where she had set the paintings. They were in the same order . . . weren’t they? As she viewed them, she realized they took a rather strange progression.

First the ominous image of the cliff, then the woman posing in the studio, then the woman on the street, then the series of images of looking into the windows of Wharton houses, and then the depictions of Wharton’s streets at night.

It was as though the paintings were a series, telling a story. But what could it be?

Tess stared at the images for a long moment, and then she realized. She was looking at the series backward. It started on the streets and progressed, at last, to the cliff. The realization sent a cold shiver through her. What could it mean? Did it mean anything?

She shook off those wonderings and got to the business at hand. Her father had told her to take the paintings down to the wall safe, and that was what she was going to do. He was right. She needed to get them out of sight before anyone else, even Wyatt, came back. As nice as the people were that she had met in Wharton—Wyatt, Hunter, Grant, and even Jim and Jane—the prospect of $100 million might turn any of them into a thief. Or worse.

So, Tess carried the paintings down to the drawing room, making several trips, walking slowly and carefully. She pressed the combination of numbers and letters her father had sent into the keypad, and the lock clicked.

As the safe swung open, Tess saw it was empty. Her parents must’ve taken their important papers and anything else with them to Florida when they moved permanently, she reasoned. That was just fine with her. She slid the paintings into the safe—they all fit inside, just barely—and closed it.

Her heart was racing. She could feel eyes boring into the back of her neck, as though someone were watching.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN



Tess sank onto the sofa and dialed her father.

“Everything’s in the safe?” he asked her. Not even a hello.