Finding Jessica Read online

  “Why do you think he’d be in trouble?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything else and let Tom tell you what he knows about Mr. Green.” Rocky saw her swallow. He knew women like Brenda. Once they’d been through what she had, they never wanted to be near violence again. “Do I need to be worried next time he shows up?”

  “I don’t think so,” Rocky replied, handing her his card, “but stay away from him. And if you see or hear anything unusual, give me a call.” At the door he looked back at her. “Don’t tell anyone about our conversation, especially Tom. Just ask him to call me when he gets in, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said in a small, frightened voice.

  Rocky went out the door. Sometimes he hated his job. He knew he’d just ruined a nice lady’s day.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Barrington’s iPod was playing U2’s “In the Name of Love,” and he was standing behind Cameron’s old easel, wielding his paintbrush like a conductor. Rose thought about how she used to curl up on the chaise in the corner when Cameron painted, watching his eyes flit from the painting to her face. It had been one of the safest feelings she’d had since her mom died.

  “Where’d they find the car?” Barrington asked. Paint flew in all directions, spattering the walls and floor. Rose was dying to see The Peacemaker, but she didn’t know if it was okay to ask an artist of his caliber while it was still in process.

  “In a neighbor’s driveway a couple miles from Solitude.” She took a step back. She was afraid the paint would splatter her new Giuseppe Zanitti sandals. “They were on vacation and found it parked there when they got home.” She took the photograph out of her handbag and studied it. Jessica in Times Square. “They found this on the passenger seat,” Rose said.

  Barrington looked up. His face was smeared with paint, and his hair was sticking out in all directions. Rose realized that she liked him. He reminded her of her Uncle Victor. She didn’t want him to be heartbroken all over again when she showed him the photograph, but she stepped forward anyway. “It’s that picture of Jess,” she said.

  Barrington came around the easel to look at it. “I took that right after we moved in together.” Barrington kept looking at it. The iPod shuffled to Big & Rich’s “Caught up in the Moment.” He quit looking at the picture, went back behind the easel and reached for a bottle of wine. “I should never have come here.” He started refilling his jelly jar. “Hal would still be alive if I’d left things alone.” He took a long drink and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his smock. “And I never would have known about her stealing the painting or the money.”

  Setting the glass down, he examined the painting. “The way I see it, meeting you and Rocky has been the only good thing to come out of this mess.” Rose braced herself for the come-on she was sure would follow, but Barrington just picked up the brush again and started painting. She knew Barrington thought she was attractive. She’d caught him looking at her with more than a friend’s eye. But Barrington wasn’t going to break any barrier by coming on to her. He was being genuine, like a real friend.

  She watched the fine lines of his brow crease with concentration. His eyes moved rapidly as he made swift strokes on the canvas. The voice of Bloomberg, her last shrink, echoed in her head: If we let them, the ghosts of our past will never go away, our lives will be dragged down by their chains.

  “Do you ever paint sober?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Barrington said, but the word was hesitant, and Rose knew it probably wasn’t the truth. “Or used to,” he told her shyly, “and I smoke cigars, too.” Bending down, he rummaged through his leather satchel of art supplies and plucked a fat cigar out of its depths.

  “No smoking.” Rose heard the snap in her voice, and Barrington stopped mid-gesture.

  “All right,” he said slowly, “no smoking.”

  “Sorry.” She felt very tired suddenly and sat down on the chaise. She’d missed her morning run to do surveillance on another case, and that always made her feel edgy, but she knew it was more than that. “You can smoke later,” she told Barrington. “Just keep painting.” Barrington went back to his easel. The iPod went to that Adele song that always made her think of Daniel.

  “My mom died of cancer when I was sixteen,” Rose said suddenly. Barrington cocked an eyebrow at her. “She smoked,” she said. “She was very beautiful when she smoked. She looked like Zsa Zsa Gabor, and every man who looked at her fell in love with her.” Rose put her feet up on the chaise and closed her eyes. “Very glamorous, but it killed her.”

  “And your old man?” Barrington asked.

  “Disappeared when I was two.

  “Ah,” Barrington said, “that explains it.”

  She opened her eyes. “Explains what?

  Barrington shrugged. “You’re like me,” he said. “You’re afraid of being left.”

  She stared at him. Hal had told her something similar once. They’d taken a trip to Montreal last summer to do surveillance for a client, driven that straight, boring highway through to the border. Married men are great, he’d told her when she’d admitted that although she’d loved Cameron, she had never let go of her feelings for Daniel. They’ll never leave you, because they’re already gone. It had hit her when he said it that maybe that was part of the reason she hung on to Daniel. And part of the reason she had loved Cameron was that she thought he’d never in a million years leave her. Yet he had, just like her mother and Hal had left her. Except it wasn’t a choice, she thought now, as it had been her father’s choice, and in a way, as it was Daniel’s choice to stay married. “Is it that obvious?” She asked Barrington.

  He kept painting, and for a second she thought he might not have heard her. Then he began to nod. “Takes one to know one. Why do you think I’ve never been serious with anyone since Jess?”

  Rose watched him studying the palette, choosing a color, and she wondered if Jessica had been with him when he’d painted the first The Peacemaker. “Did Jessica love you?” she asked.

  Barrington’s head jerked back as if she’d slapped him, and then he bent over and took a sip of wine. “She left me,” he said flatly.

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Rose saw his silver gray eyes scan the room as if searching for a way out. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I think Jess loved me a lot, but I didn’t treat her right, so she left me for a pile of money and stole my painting.” Barrington blinked, and his gigantic lashes reminded her of a small child.

  “You’re scared, aren’t you, about finding her?”

  “You sure know how to turn the questioning around.” Barrington studied the painting or pretended to. His beard was flecked with paint. He looked to Rose like the survivor of some odd war. “But yeah, I am scared. What if I find her, and she hates me?” His voice was sober now, the thickness of drink gone. “What if she tells me the baby wasn’t mine?” He half-smiled at Rose, a sad, frightened smile. “I mean, it hasn’t gone so hot up till now.” He set the jelly jar on the floor. “My nostalgic journey to reignite an old romance has turned into a little bit of a nightmare.”

  Rose thought of all that time she’d spent with her shrink, and the main thing she’d come away with was that your life was your own. You could do any damn thing you wanted with it, and every choice had consequences, either good or bad. “Let me ask you something,” she said to Barrington. “Were you sober when you painted the original?”

  He nodded. “Sober as a church mouse.”

  “You’ll feel a lot better if you let go of the handles and drop it.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Your past,” Rose said. “Once you let go of your past, you won’t need the booze nearly as much.”

  He turned his big silver gray eyes to her, his eyebrows like smattered rainbows from the paints. “Drop Jess after I came all this way to find her?”

  Rose nodded. “Maybe it’s time to let go.”

  “But how do you know when it’s time to let go?” he asked.

&nbs
p; “I know you don’t need to be drunk to create a masterpiece,” she said.

  “I was drunk on love then; now I’m drunk on regret. Is there a difference?” When she didn’t answer, Barrington looked down at the jelly jar and the empty bottle of wine beside it. He looked so long Rose thought he was done speaking until finally he said, “I’d give you a hug, but I’d get paint all over you.” He turned the easel around. “How does it look?”

  Rose felt the room go very still. The music faded, and Barrington seemed to dissolve into the background. The Peacemaker appeared alive, as though it were lighting up the studio from some celestial divinity captured in the canvas. For a few seconds she was speechless. “Barrington,” she whispered, “it’s beautiful. I mean really beautiful.” She’d assumed the painting would be a modernistic rendition on the futility of war, a veritable poster child for disarmament. After all, these were popular sentiments during the Cold War Era when Barrington had created it. But there wasn’t anything political about it. The painting was deeply spiritual. She wished Cameron was alive to see it. He would have studied that painting for hours. “Your interpretation of the Beatitudes?”

  Barrington grinned. “I’m impressed,” he said. “Not many people get it.”

  “It reminds me of Paul Klee, one of Cameron’s favorite artists,” she said.

  Barrington’s eyebrows shot up. “Klee’s been an inspiration. I love what he said, that art does not reproduce the visible, rather, it makes visible. Did you know the Nazis fired him from the State Art Academy in Dusseldorf?”

  She shook her head. She was speechless that this bear of a man could know so much, create such beauty. No wonder Page Six had always called him a player. Women loved men who could see like this. They forget he never changes his socks and doesn’t know how to comb his hair.

  “They called him a degenerate artist.” Barrington picked up his paint brushes. “The fools,” he said. Rose looked again at The Peacemaker. In the art world it was considered to be the painting that had set Barrington on the path to success and fame. It was a masterpiece no one had seen in thirty years, and it had to be worth more than all the other artwork in the gallery. She wasn’t even sure the gallery’s insurance would cover it if it was stolen. She’d have to lock it up in the safe.

  “I’ve never been a fan of modern art, but I like this.” Rose turned to see Rocky in the doorway, a candy bar in his hand, squinting at The Peacemaker as though it might come alive and he’d have to shoot it. She forced herself not to laugh. Rocky wasn’t a fan of any kind of art or artists in general.

  “I’m glad you like it.” Barrington took a little bow.

  “Rose show you the photograph?” Rocky asked.

  Barrington nodded. “Does she remind you of anyone in town, only older now?”

  Rocky popped the last of the candy bar in his mouth. He was sweating, and he had donut crumbs on his shirtfront. “Hell, I’ve studied it some, but it was taken a long time ago, and who knows if she’s even in Haven. She could have cut her hair, had it crimped and dyed or whatever ladies do, and gained a pile of weight.” He hitched up his pants. Under that giant muffin-top of a belly, the pants didn’t have a chance of staying up. “She could have had some of those needles poked in her face or whatever.”

  Rose laughed. “Botox makes you look young again, Rocky, not different.”

  Rocky sat on the chaise next to Rose. “Well, changing your identity ain’t the hardest gig on the block.”

  Barrington wrapped the metal part of his paintbrush in the newspaper and pulled the brush through. Rose felt a little twinge watching him. Cameron had used the same cleaning technique.

  “Just swung by the dealership to invite Tom and Brenda to the party,” Rocky said. “Talked to Tom a little bit about Nicky the Knife, or whatever the heck they call him. Nicky told Tom he was thinking about opening a real estate office in town and wanted to see lakeside property, so Tom showed him the cottage.”

  “What about the key Brenda told you about?”

  “Actually, Heidi asked Tom to give that key to Nicky.”

  Rose was surprised. “What’s she got to do with it?”

  “She’s lives in that apartment above Table Talk, but apparently she’s owns a condo near the Haven Ski Resort she rents out.” He crumpled the candy wrapper. “She was heading out of town for a few days before he got into town, so Nicky asked her to leave the key with Tom.”

  “Why not leave it at Table Talk?”

  Barrington put his brushes in a fat canning jar. “Maybe Tom’s part of Beach’s plan to lead the FBI on a wild goose chase.”

  “You’re good,” Rocky told him. “You’re a regular detective.”

  Barrington grinned at Rose. “Don’t go getting ideas,” she said. “You paint, we’ll fight the crimes.” She turned to Rocky. “Does Nicky still have the key?”

  “Yeah, it’s a long-term lease.”

  “Thorne told me Nicky stays at the Hillside Resort whenever he’s in Haven.” She watched Barrington at the sink, washing his brushes. How many times she’d seen Cameron doing the same. “He didn’t say anything about a condo,” she said.

  “No,” Rocky said as he threw the wrapper in the wastebasket, “he didn’t.”

  “So the question is,” she said, “who’s been staying at the condo?”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Rocky said. “How long will it take for the paint to dry?”

  “About four days,” Barrington answered.

  “Then we could have the party on Saturday night,” Rose told him. “I’m going to invite everyone, including your little nemesis, Chad Connor. Be interesting to see if he recognizes the painting.”

  “He’ll be spying up a storm,” Rocky snapped, “taking notes for Thorne.”

  “Well, it is his job,” Rose pointed out, “and didn’t Chief Tuttle tell you to work with the FBI?”

  “Easy for him to say. He doesn’t have to deal with that pansy Thorne or his fancy-pants sidekick.”

  “Take it slow, big guy.” She patted his shoulder. Rocky wasn’t accustomed to running sting operations as she was, and the last thing they needed was him shooting his mouth off at Chad and giving their plan away.

  “I’ll invite Mrs. Minot personally,” Barrington offered. He dipped his paintbrushes in turpentine. It was funny to see him being so fastidious when he was covered from head to foot in paint, and his crazy hair was all over the place. “I’ve been meaning to drop by her place.” He pumped liquid soap into his hand, plucked a brush out of the jar and started scrubbing. “I’d like to thank her in person.”

  He said it in a lighthearted party spirit, but Rose knew what they were doing was dangerous. They weren’t dealing with an amateur. Whoever killed Hal had been bold enough to return to Solitude a second time, and The Peacemaker would probably be temptation enough for him or her to try it again. She didn’t want any more murders or mishaps. She was just hoping for an arrest.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Later that night Rose relaxed on the couch with Cosmo, listening to the staccato song of crickets in the woods. A glass of red wine in her hand, her feet curled up beneath her, she’d lit a dozen candles in the fireplace, and in the dark the flames flickered against the log walls like shadow puppets at play. She thought how lately, even in the midst of Hal’s death and this crazy investigation, she had felt an odd, deep peace she hadn’t felt since her mother died.

  She’d been sixteen that year, and while the girls in her class were drinking keg beer at parties and losing their virginity, Rose had sat vigil by her mother’s hospital bed. Her mother’s hand had felt like parchment the last day, but somehow below the blue silk scarf covering her hairless head, her eyes still had a magnificent light. “Don’t be sad,” she’d told Rose. “I’m going on a wonderful journey.”

  Rose had steeled herself not to cry. She’d even smiled to show her mother how brave she was, and she’d held that bravery all through the funeral and her move to her Uncle Victor’s, held it through the
valedictorian speech and her years at Princeton, held it through her work at the CIA. It had become a sort of steel rod she carried in her body. Even with Daniel, she kept that part of her intact. It was only when Cameron came along that it really started to loosen.

  In the picture across from her, he was standing on top of Loon Mountain, his skis pointed toward the Black Diamond trail he’d challenged her to race. Cameron had grown up on that mountain, and she knew he’d probably let her win. He was a man happy with cuddling as much as making love, and she could still remember that first time the well had broken, and he had held her. She’d cried for hours. She thought she’d never stop crying, and afterwards they’d lain in bed, looking up at the skylight where stars had started to appear. She realized she couldn’t find the steel rod. It seemed like a phantom limb, and she felt completely relaxed. “Everything will be easier after this,” Cameron had said.

  She hadn’t quite known what he meant then, but after that, she’d felt herself smile more, she could sleep without waking up at every sound. The crying jags had come up unexpectedly throughout her years with him. They seemed to braid in between all the blissful, safe times. The shrink had said she’d finally felt safe enough to let go of the grief that had built up in that private place in her over so many years.

  But when Cameron’s death came, she’d felt that steel rod tightening again. Haven wouldn’t quite let it tighten all the way. Hal and Rocky and Emily kept it at bay, and now Barrington, crazy artist that he was, was softening her, too. She sank deeper into her pillows, and Cosmo climbed onto her lap, and just when she felt herself get sleepy, her phone vibrated. She looked down at it. Daniel. Even though he couldn’t see her, she felt herself reach up and smooth her hair.

  “Rosie,” he said when she picked up. She felt herself go liquid inside, as she always did when she heard his voice.