Promise Not To Tell(88)

“For the last time, I am not going to put the glass paperweights in the show,” Virginia said. “I agree they work wonders when it comes to drawing customers in off the street, but this is a very serious show for very serious collectors. If we treat the paperweights as serious art, the serious collectors will be deer in the headlights.”

“Maybe they’ll think it’s a charmingly original concept,” Jessica said. “You know – a way to soften the elitism of the art world.”

“Don’t kid yourself. Serious collectors love the elitism of the art world. They thrive on it.”

Jessica gave a little snort. “Maybe we should print up name tags with the words ‘You’re Special’ on them for each guest.”

Virginia smiled. “It’s a thought.” She crossed her arms and walked around the room, taking one last look at the objects and paintings she had selected. She stopped in front of a glass bowl.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “No paperweights, but I’ll add the Billings glass. Will that make you happy?”

Jessica brightened. “I love that piece. In the right light it looks like molten gold.”

“Light makes art glass come alive,” Virginia said. She glanced at her new phone. “It’s after five. Time for you to go home.”

Jessica collected her jacket and handbag and headed for the front door. “We’ve got some wonderful pieces. Can’t wait for our clients to see them. They will be absolutely wowed.”

“I hope so. See you in the morning.”

Jessica paused at the door. “How is Cabot doing?”

“He’s fine, thanks,” Virginia said. “His wound is healing nicely. Right now he and Anson are tidying up some loose ends in the case.”

She didn’t see any reason to mention that Cabot and Anson were starting work on Abigail Watkins’s journal. Jessica knew a lot about recent events, but she wasn’t a member of what Anson referred to as the Zane Conspiracy Club. Family secrets, Virginia thought.

Jessica let herself outside and disappeared into the rainy afternoon. Virginia waited until the door closed. Then she began another walk-through, trying to see the objects and paintings she had selected through the eyes of serious collectors and art critics.

When she was satisfied that she had made the right choices, she went to where her jacket hung on a wall hook. It was time to go home. She and Cabot were planning to meet Anson for dinner. She was eager to hear what the two men had learned from Abigail Watkins’s diary.

She looked at the door of the large storage room that contained Hannah’s paintings. She toyed with the notion of putting a picture from the Visions series on display with an NFS – Not for Sale – tag on it.

You did all you could to protect me, Hannah. It’s not your fault that the past would not stay buried. You gave me a warning that probably saved my life.

If not for the photograph of Hannah’s last painting, she would never have understood that she was in danger, Virginia thought. She would not have gone looking for Anson Salinas. She would not have found Cabot.

I might never have known the joy of falling in love.

Yes, she decided. She would hang one picture from the Visions series in a tribute to a brave, emotionally wounded artist who had jumped to her death in a desperate effort to keep a promise to a friend who had died twenty-two years ago.

She put down her jacket and handbag, got the key from the desk and opened the door of the storage closet. Mentally she braced herself as she always did when she entered the small antechamber of her own private hell and flipped the wall switch.

She walked down the aisle formed by the paintings and pulled off the tarps that covered each of them one by one.

The fiery paintings of the Visions series flared to life around her. The only one that was missing was Hannah’s final picture, the one that had been destroyed when she had burned down her cabin. Virginia made a note to have the photograph printed, mounted and framed. It would finish the series.

She stopped at the far end of the closet, where the two covered paintings of Abigail Watkins rested against the wall. Each was clearly marked: Not for Sale. Client may call.

So many questions about the past had been answered in the last few days, she thought, but one remained. Why two paintings of Abigail Watkins, Hannah? You said Abigail asked you to paint them, and then you told me to keep them in case someone came looking for them.

But no one had come looking.

A shiver of knowing swept through Virginia. Had Abigail, at the end of her life, entertained a fantasy that Quinton Zane might someday come looking for her? But that explanation didn’t feel right. Like Hannah, Abigail had been terrified of Zane.

What did feel right was another kind of fantasy – the dream of a mother who had been forced to give up her baby at birth.

“You hoped that Tucker might someday come looking for you, didn’t you, Abigail?”

But that had not happened, either. Instead, Tucker had become obsessed with the father he had never known. It was just as well that Abigail had died with her fantasy. It would have broken her heart if she had learned the truth – that her son had been a deranged killer.

Except…

Why two paintings?

An ice-cold flicker of anxiety whispered through her. For a few frantic seconds she tried to reason with herself. Don’t let your imagination take control.