The Stroke of Winter(82)

Indigo whipped his head around. “Police? Why on earth—”

“If you’d just listen to me, I’d tell you,” Tess said, the age-old communication problems she had always had with her father bubbling to the surface once again. Some things never changed, even though she was a grown woman with an adult son of her own. “That’s the problem. You never listen. But this time, I’ve got something to say, and you need to hear it.”

“Okay, darling. I’m sorry. Go on, please.”

“Wyatt and I were out walking the dogs, and as we came up the road, I saw that the lights were on in the studio. I hadn’t left them on. I saw, we saw, a figure in the window.”

Indigo furrowed his brow and caught his wife’s eye. Jill put a protective hand on Tess’s arm. “Thank God you weren’t in the house.”

“Jim saw the person in the window, too. In fact, he called me before we even got to the house to ask if I had a houseguest, because he could clearly see someone moving around in the studio. If I hadn’t called the police, he would have.”

Indigo ran a hand through his hair. “This is what I was afraid of,” he said.

Tess shook her head. “No, Dad. The police came right away but couldn’t find any evidence of a break-in. And they didn’t find a person, either.”

“So, you thought you saw someone,” Indigo said. “But it turned out to be nothing?”

“Not exactly nothing. No, they didn’t find an intruder, but when the police were searching the house and the studio, they found this.” She waved her hand at the stains. “They did some testing. It’s dried blood.”

Indigo shook his head, slowly. “No, no, no,” he whispered. “It can’t be.”

“That’s what the police believe,” Tess said. “I couldn’t even spend the night here last night. A forensics team was here.”

“I had a bad feeling about this, and I should’ve listened to it,” Indigo said. “You have no idea what you have unearthed.”

Tess crossed her arms. “Well, I think I have some idea,” she said. “For one thing, the paintings show an obsession with a woman here in Wharton. They’re really disturbing, if you didn’t notice it. Sebastian was stalking her, or at least that’s what the paintings depicted. He stood outside of her house and painted what he saw! He followed her down the street and painted that, too! And then the portrait. Did you notice the look on her face? It was like she was almost afraid. That, coupled with the blood—it looks really bad, Dad. It’s like Sebastian Bell was a stalker, obsessed with this woman. We know who she was! Daisy Erickson! And she disappeared, so he might have been the one who killed her. This might be her blood all over this studio. It’s like those paintings were his confession.”

Indigo Bell’s face was ashen, as if his daughter’s words had sucked the blood right out of him. Tears welled up in his eyes. He brushed back a strand of his white hair and sighed.

“My father wasn’t the one who painted those paintings,” he said, his voice soft. Defeated. Deflated. “It was Grey.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT



Tess just stood there in stunned silence.

“When you told your mom and me that you had found the paintings, I was overjoyed, but at the same time, I had my suspicions,” Indigo said.

“You did?” Tess asked.

“Indeed,” he said. “You never knew my father, of course, so you couldn’t have known how in love he was with his own work. The ego on that man . . .”

Tess knew something about fathers with enormous egos.

“I held open the possibility that he was preparing for an opening where he would display those new works, but the idea that my mother would’ve shut those paintings away, kept them from the world after he died, just didn’t ring true,” Indigo said. “Remember, it wasn’t just art. It was income for our family.”

Tess nodded. “That never occurred to me.”

“Oh yes,” Indigo continued. “And when she started the foundation, she certainly would’ve sold those paintings to help fund it. Can you imagine what the last-ever works by Sebastian Bell would be worth?”

“That did occur to me,” Tess said.

“I was holding out hope . . . until I got a look at the photos you sent. Then, I knew.”

“How did you know?”

“Daisy, for one,” Indigo said. “My father didn’t like her. She and Grey had been sweethearts since they were children. They were one of those couples. Destined to be together. But when she married that odious Frank Erickson, Sebastian wrote her off. My mother did, too. They were furious. And Grey was heartbroken.”

“So, he wouldn’t have painted her portrait?”

“Dear God, no,” Indigo said. “He never painted portraits, much less of someone he despised. Don’t you see—all of his depictions of people are captured from the side, or from the back. He never painted a traditional portrait in his life.”

Tess thought back to all the paintings by Sebastian Bell that she had seen—she knew every one. Indigo was right. There were no traditional portraits.

“I never knew Grey was a painter,” Tess said.

“He was. Quite a good one, as you saw. His style was much like my father’s, but darker. Much darker. But then again, that was Grey. He was always brooding.”