Vengeance in Death (In Death #6)(103)

That’s where she started, checking pockets, searching for anything that would signal a false wall.

When she came out fifteen minutes later, she could hear Feeney and McNab happily chirping about mainframes and signal capacitors. She went through the bureau drawer by drawer and shut down any threatening shudder that she was pawing through Summerset’s underwear.

She’d been at it an hour, and was just about to call Peabody in to help her flip the mattress when she looked at the single watercolor over a table decked with hothouse roses.

Odd, she thought, all the other paintings — and the man had an art house supply of them — were in groupings on the walls. This one stood alone. It was a good piece of work, she supposed, moving closer to study the soft strokes, the dreamy colors. A young boy was the centerpiece, his face angelic and wreathed with smiles, his arms loaded with flowers. Wild flowers that spilled over and onto the ground.

Why should the kid in the painting look familiar? she wondered. Something about the eyes. She moved closer yet, peering into that softly painted face. Who the hell are you? she asked silently. And what are you doing on Summerset’s wall?

It couldn’t be Summerset’s work, not after the canvas she’d seen in his studio. This artist had talent and style. And knew the child. Eve was almost certain of that.

For a better look, she lifted it from the wall and carried it to the window. Down in the corner she could see a sweep of writing. Audrey.

The girlfriend, she mused. She supposed that’s why he’d hung it separately, underplanting it with fresh roses. Christ, the man was actually love struck.

She nearly re-hung the painting, then laid it on the bed instead. Something about the boy, she thought again, and her heart picked up in pace. Where have I seen him? Why would I have seen him? The eyes. Damn it.

Frustrated, she turned the painting over and began to pry it from its gilded frame.

“Find something, Dallas?” Peabody asked from the doorway.

“No — I don’t know. Something about this painting. This kid. Audrey. I want to see if there’s a title — a name on the back of the canvas. Hell with it.” Annoyed, she reached up to tear off the backing.

“Wait. I’ve got a penknife.” Peabody hurried over. “If you just slit the backing up here, you can re-seal it. This is a nice, professional job.” She slipped the tip of her knife under the thin white paper, lifted it gently. “I used to do the backings for my cousin. She could paint, but she couldn’t turn a screw with a laser drill. I can fix this when — ”

“Stop.” Eve clamped a hand on Peabody’s wrist when she spotted the tiny silver disc under the backing. “Get Feeney and McNab. The f**king painting’s bugged.”

Alone, Eve lifted the painting out of its frame and, turning it, looked down in the signature corner. Below Audrey’s name, deep in the corner that had been covered by the frame, was a green shamrock.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“They could keep an eye on him during his personal time,” Eve said as she drove hard to the Luxury Towers. “Odds are Feeney and McNab will find another couple paintings of hers through his quarters, wired.”

“Shouldn’t Roarke’s bug eaters have tapped them?”

“Feeney’ll find out why they went undetected. You got anything on her yet?”

“No, sir. All I get from the run is that she’s forty-seven, born in Connecticut. She studied at Julliard, did three years at the Sorbonne in Paris, another two at the art colony on Rembrandt Station. She teaches privately and donates instruction time at Culture Exchange. She’s lived in New York for four years.”

“She’s connected. He’s diddled with her records. I’ll eat Feeney’s ugly new hat if she’s from Connecticut. Run the females on the Irish link. All female relatives on the six men who did Marlena. Put it on the monitor so I can see.”

“Take a minute.” Peabody opened Eve’s file, found the labeled disc, and inserted it. “Display females only, with full data.”

Eve pulled over a block from the Luxury Towers as the faces began to run. “No.” She shook her head, signaling Peabody to go on to the next, and the next. She cursed under her breath, snarled at a glide-cart operator who slid up to try to hawk his wares. “No, damn it. She’s in here, I know it. Wait, hold on, go back one.”

“Mary Patricia Calhoun,” Peabody read off. “Nee McNally, widow of Liam Calhoun. Resides Doolin, Ireland. Artist. Her tax-exempt number’s up to date. Age forty-six, one son, also Liam, student.”

“It’s the eyes, just like the kid in the painting. She’s changed her hair, brown from blond, had some face work done. Longer, thinner nose now, more cheekbone, less chin, but that’s her. Split screen, display image of Liam Calhoun, son.”

The picture popped, joining mother and son. “That’s him, from the painting.” She stared hard into the older and no less angelic face, the bright and brilliant green eyes. “Got you, bastard,” she murmured, then shot back into traffic.

The doorman from their first visit paled when he saw them. It only took a jerk of Eve’s thumb to have him moving aside.

“They must have planned this for years, starting with her.” Eve stepped to the center of the glass elevator. “He’d have been about five when his father died.”