The Stroke of Winter(81)

“Just as I thought, just as I thought,” Indigo murmured to himself.

“Dad?” Tess said.

Indigo whipped his head around, startled, as though he didn’t imagine she would be there. “Honey, I’m just taking a better look at these.”

“But why? Why come all of this way? You and Mom never come back to Wharton in the winter anymore. I sent you the photos, didn’t I?”

But Indigo was busy lining up the paintings in order, end to end. When they were all out of the safe, leaning against the wall, he took a deep breath and stepped closer to get a better look.

“Dad, what—”

But Jill’s hand on Tess’s arm told her to stop talking. Tess got it, then, or thought she did. This was about Indigo, seeing his father’s paintings for the first time. If anything could pry him away from his golf clubs, their cabin cruiser, and the swanky country club in Florida, it would be this. She should be quiet and let him experience it.

Jill slipped an arm around Tess’s waist and pulled her close. Tess laid her head on her mother’s shoulder—a much-needed respite after the day she’d just had—as both of them watched Indigo study his father’s paintings.

He turned to them, then. “Now I need to go up into the studio,” he said. He started out of the room when Tess took his arm.

“Dad, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you guys all day,” she said. “Before you go upstairs into the studio, we have to talk. There are things you don’t know.”

This stopped Indigo short. He squinted at her. “What things?”

“Let’s go back into the kitchen, and we’ll talk. And then, after you know what’s going on, we’ll go up into the studio.”

A flash of anger on Indigo’s face just then. But it faded as quickly as it had come.

“Indy,” Jill said. “Let’s hear Tess out. She’s the one who has been here, after all. She’s done all the heavy lifting in regard to the paintings and opening up the studio and all of that. Here—” she said, bending down and picking up one of the paintings, “let’s put these back in the safe and go on into the kitchen with Tess. Then we’ll go up and see the studio before hitting the hay. I’m exhausted, and I’m sure you are, too. Okay?”

Indigo looked from one to the other, a small grin appearing on his face. “A man knows when he is outnumbered,” he said. He helped Jill put the paintings back into the wall safe and shut it tight. “I could do with another Scotch anyway.”

Back in the kitchen, her parents settled into the armchairs by the fire as Tess perched on the footstool between them.

“Dad, remember the other day when I asked if this house was haunted?” Tess began.

Indigo shooed the comment away with a swipe of his hand. “Not that again,” he said. “I grew up in this house.”

She looked to her mother for support, but Jill just shrugged. “I’m with your dad on this one, Tess,” she said. “All the years we’ve been coming here for vacations—our whole marriage!—there’s never been a single thing that went bump in the night.”

“Well, there is now,” Tess said, with a note of finality. “It started even before I opened up the studio. And tonight—”

Indigo held up his hand to stop her words. “Tess, forgive me. But your mother and I are exhausted. I’m going up to take my first look into my father’s studio in decades, and then we’re going to bed.”

“But, Dad, there’s something you need to know about the studio—”

Again he stopped her words. “Not now, Tess.”

He pushed himself up from his chair and held a hand out to Jill. She took it, and they headed up the back stairs. Tess followed.

Indigo hurried down the hall but stopped short before going through the studio doorway. Tess watched as her mother put a hand on her husband’s back and he turned to her, enveloping her into a hug. The sweetness of the gesture brought tears to Tess’s eyes. She had never seen an ounce of vulnerability in her father. He had always been such a tower of strength, a man who radiated confidence. She wasn’t sure if this was a welcome sight or not.

Then he stepped over the threshold. Jill and Tess followed.

Indigo Bell held his breath as he gazed upon his father’s studio. To Tess, it seemed as though the room were holding its breath, too. He walked slowly to the table, his footsteps reverberating throughout the space. He ran his hand along the whole length of it.

“He used to let us play under here while he was working,” Indigo said. “Grey and me.”

But then his eyes strayed to the reddish slash on the wall, and he turned to Tess, his brow furrowed. “What’s that?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Dad,” Tess said. “I wanted to say this gently, but you’re forcing me to blurt it out by stopping me from talking all the time. This studio is a crime scene. Or was.”

Indio turned around slowly, his mouth agape. “What do you mean, a crime scene?”

“Come on,” Tess said, leading her father to the bathroom. They peered into it. “This is where I found the paintings,” she said. “And all of this? The splatters on the walls and the floor and in the tub and even on those rags? That’s blood, Dad. Initially, I thought it was paint, but when the police came—”