Now You See Her Read online

  “How did you do this?” he murmured. “It looks three-dimensional. And the color ...” He fell silent, moving on to the next painting, a sunset in Manhattan with the dark, faceless buildings silhouetted against a brilliant sky. She had painted the sky a glowing pinkish orange, and what could have been an ordinary skyline was turned into something exuberant. It had taken her two days of experimentation to get that exact shade.

  He didn’t say anything, and finally she couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “Well?” she demanded, the word tart with impatience.

  He turned to face her, eyeing her taut stance. “You’ve always been good, and you know it. Now you’re better.”

  Her shoulders relaxed and she ran a hand through her hair. “I can’t paint the way I used to,” she confessed. “Like everything else, my style changed a year ago. I look at what I’m doing now and it’s almost as if a stranger painted it.”

  “You’ve changed, and that’s what changed your style. Maybe all of this is linked, maybe it isn’t, but I’m damn glad it happened.”

  She gave him a curious look. “Why?”

  “Because you never saw me before. Now you do.”

  He was serious, his gaze intent and unwavering. He could probably hypnotize a cobra with that look, she thought. It was certainly working on her, because she couldn’t look away. She started to protest that of course she had seen him before, but then she realized what he meant. She hadn’t seen him as a man before. In her mind men had been desexed, neutralized, of no importance to her. She hadn’t wanted to deal with the messy complications of sex and emotional demands, so she had closed herself off from them. With her parents’ example of what not to do always before her, and her own desire to concentrate on her painting, she had turned herself into an emotional nun.

  Whether the weird changes had something to do with the shift in her attitude or the simple passage of time had healed her fears, that phase of her life was over and she didn’t think it would ever be possible for her to return to it. Her eyes were open, and she would never again be oblivious to Richard’s sexual nature, to the male hunger in his eyes when he looked at her.

  “Did you see me?” she asked. “Before, I mean. We met. . . what? Three times?”

  “Four. Yes, I saw you.” He smiled. “I’ve always known you’re a woman.”

  The way he looked at her then made her nipples tingle, and she suspected that if she glanced down, she would see they were nothing more than tight little points poking at her sweatshirt. She didn’t look. She didn’t want to draw his attention, in case he had missed it.

  “Are you turned on, or cold?” he asked softly, and she knew he hadn’t missed a thing.

  She cleared her throat. “I guess I’m turned on, because I’m sure not cold.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. She wondered if she should have feigned ignorance, or maybe played it cute and flirted with him. She had a lot to learn about this come-hither stuff, but for the first time she realized the process could be fun.

  But not now. Not yet. She cleared her throat again and turned to the closet behind her. “The painting’s in here.” She had to steel herself to open the door, reluctant to face the ugliness of death. She couldn’t avoid looking at it; because the paint hadn’t been dry when she put the canvas in the closet, it was turned facing out. The artist in her wouldn’t let her do anything to deface even this painting, though ordinarily she would never put anything in the closet to dry.

  Hurriedly she reached in and got the canvas, then propped it on the wall next to the closet. Richard walked over and stared down at the painting, his expression hard and shielded. Sweeney went over to the window and stood looking out.

  “You did this before you knew he was dead.” It was a statement, not a question, but then in any case, she had already said so. “Do you know what happened to him?”

  “No, he looked okay to me.” She bit her lip. “But they all do, you know?” All the ghosts looked in the pink of health. Talk about ridiculous.

  “What was his name?”

  “Stokes. I don’t know his first name. But his sons are David and Jacob Stokes. They’re both attorneys.”

  “I think I’ll check into this, if you don’t mind.”

  “Check into what?” Curiosity made her turn to look at him.

  “How he died.” He rubbed his thumb against the underside of his jaw. “Maybe it was an accident.”

  “Because of the blood? I don’t know how realistic that painting is; he could have had a stroke, or a heart attack. Maybe the blood’s there because—I don’t know—I associate blood with death. Or maybe he fell down a flight of stairs.”

  “I’ll check into it,” Richard repeated. He turned toward the door. She followed him as he went into the living room and picked up his shirt. She watched him shrug into it, feeling a pang of regret as he covered that broad chest. Without a hint of self-consciousness, he unfastened his pants and began tucking in the shirt. A wave of warmth washed over her. She actually felt flushed.

  “I have an appointment I can’t put off,” he said as he rebuckled his belt. “Get a pen and paper; I’m going to give you my private number.”

  She didn’t have to search for either one; she was an orderly creature, so both were right beside the phone. “Okay, shoot.”

  He recited the number. “Don’t wait until you’re so cold you can’t function. Call me immediately. If you’re right about it only happening when you’ve had an episode of sleepwalking, then you’ll know as soon as you check the studio whether or not you need to call.”

  “There’s no way to tell how often that will be. You can’t take the time to come over here every time I get cold.”

  “The hell I can’t. It isn’t just a chill; it’s more serious than that and you know it. Look, for my peace of mind, call me every morning when you get up, okay?” He took her chin in his hand and bent down to kiss her. The kiss was light, his lips soft and barely moving on hers. Sweeney kept herself from clinging to him, but it was a struggle; the man was addictive. She wanted more of him, all of him.

  He paused at the door. “Does the gallery have exclusive rights to sell your work, except for your portrait commissions?”

  “Except for any directly commissioned work, yes.”

  He nodded. “I want that one with the running water. Take it to the gallery to be framed, and I’ll arrange the purchase through another person so Candra won’t sell it to someone else just to keep me from getting it.”

  And so Candra wouldn’t know there was anything between them, she thought. She had been right to be reluctant to get involved with him; even though he and Candra had split, the situation was awkward, and finalizing the divorce probably wouldn’t help a lot. In that moment she made the decision to dissolve the agreement between herself and Candra and begin the search for another gallery to represent her.

  “I’ll call you,” he said, and hesitated for a moment, looking back at her. She had the impression he wanted to kiss her again. Evidently he thought better of it, though, and he stepped out into the hall. He had probably made the right decision, she thought wistfully, as she shut the door and locked it, but the right decision wasn’t always the most pleasurable. They had already become far more involved than was right, but at least he’d had the self-control to keep from taking things any further. Until his divorce was final, she thought, they couldn’t risk a repeat of today’s situation, because the temptation was too great to resist many times.

  * * *

  Richard frowned as he left the building. Edward saw him come out of the door, and within seconds the car slid to a halt in front of him.

  “Just a minute, Edward, let me make a call.” He dialed directory assistance, and asked for the number of David Stokes, attorney, then asked to be connected.

  A young male voice answered on the second ring. “Mr. Stokes isn’t in,” he said in answer to Richard’s request. “There was a death in the family, and he’ll be out of the office for the rest of the week.”