Page 4 of The Light House

“No stranger than anyone else, I suppose,” Ryan said after a moment of consideration. “I only met him the one time. Since then my son, Thad, has been making the regular weekly deliveries to the Mason property.”

Connie asked nothing more and for a moment the room was silent. Connie felt her eyes once again drawn to the mystery of the wrapped bundle.

She trapped her bottom lip between her teeth and gestured. “May I see the paintings now?”

Ryan sat up straight and nodded apologetically. “Of course,” he said. “I hope they are of interest to you.”

He pushed himself out of the chair and stooped over the desk, adjusting the lamp so the bright pool of light fell upon the bundle. Then, slowly, as though the contents were priceless relics, he unwrapped the cloth so that Connie could see the first painting. Ryan stood back and Connie came slowly to her feet like a worshipper approaching a sacred altar.

Her face was white, the blood drained from under her tan, and her eyes were enormous pools of glittering wonder. Her mouth fell open and a little gasp of utter astonishment gushed from between her lips.

The first painting was another oil on an unframed canvas that had been drawn over heavy wooden stretcher bars. It was only ten inches square – a painting of two gulls on a barren beach, overshadowed by an outcrop of grey craggy rock.

It was stunning – rendered with such perfection that it seemed to transcend the canvas it was contained within and breathe its own life. Here was the magnificence of art, a painting so vividly made that it seemed to capture the wind and the sounds of the ebbing surf as though it had been crafted not with mere paint, but with some impossible dimension of nature’s elements.

Connie felt her eyes glisten and blur. There was a sob of choked emotion in her throat. She touched her fingers to her cheek and was only vaguely aware that she was crying.

She pored over the painting, although she knew instantly the same hand made it, the same man. It was all there to see in his style, the effortless blending of color and the remarkable way the oil had seemed to melt into the canvas.

She looked up into Ryan’s face. He was standing back from the desk, watching her from the shadows.

“It’s beautiful,” her voice husked with raw emotion. “Simply beautiful.”

Ryan nodded. He had his hands clasped in front of him, his expression somber, as though he was somehow intruding on a private moment. Without a word, he carefully set the painting aside to reveal the second, larger painting.

Connie saw the seascape and clamped her hands over her mouth in speechless wonder. She blinked her eyes and realized she was visibly shaking. Slowly, she reached out tentative fingers and brushed them over the canvas, expecting them to come away wet, or perhaps covered in sand.

The second painting was another unframed oil on canvas, this one twice as long as the first. It was another seascape, similar to the one she had seen in the gallery. It depicted a lonely beach with a small boat drawn up on the sand. Beside the boat was the same beautiful young woman she had already seen, her back once again enigmatically to the artist, one hand extended as if reaching out towards the surly ocean that boiled in the mid-ground, slate grey beneath a thunderous sky.

“Are they good enough?” Ryan asked softly.

Connie nodded her head, not trusting her voice, not willing to sully this moment with any words. She gazed down at the two paintings and she knew instinctively that she had re-discovered greatness.

She snatched for the lamp and studied each painting minutely, examining the edges for signatures. There were none, yet still she was certain. She turned each canvas over with infinite care and saw no identification.

At last she nudged the light from the lamp aside and lifted her eyes to Warren Ryan. “How old is Mr. Mason?” she asked.

The storeowner shrugged. “Forty,” I guess. “Maybe a little younger.”

Connie nodded. It fit with what little she knew. A prickle of excitement tingled the hair at the nape of her neck.

“And you say he lives around here somewhere?” she kept her voice low, lest the excitement simmering in her blood became obvious.

“Sure,” Ryan shrugged. “About an hour’s drive out of town. He has a property on the beach.”

“And you say he has lived there for the past five years?”

Ryan started to nod and then stopped himself. “We’ve been delivering groceries to him for the last five years,” he said precisely. “I don’t know about before then. I only moved here to take on this business seven years ago.”

Connie fell back into her chair. She felt emotionally drained. There was a tremble in her thigh as though she had run a long way, and her arms had a heaviness that felt like the weary strain of exhaustion. She was numb with wonder, and yet overcome with the rare excitement of one who gazes upon lost treasure.

“I have a thousand dollars,” Connie offered. She opened her purse and laid the money on the table. “Is that enough?”

Ryan narrowed his eyes shrewdly. He was stretched out on the financial rack, yet he sensed there was more to be made here. He had seen the woman’s reactions to the paintings, seen the glittering need to have them in the way she lovingly gazed upon them. He shook his head and his expression became grim.

“Three thousand for both paintings,” he countered. That would be enough to get the bank off his back and carry him through the next winter. “And it would have to be cash.”

Connie looked down at the paintings on the desk and felt a surge of pure elation. They were hers. She would have them both.

She set her handbag down on the floor and pressed her knees together, straightened her back. “Mr. Ryan, can I borrow your phone?”

3.

Duncan Cartwright set his scotch carefully down and then casually reached between the pretty blonde’s spread legs and teased her with the practiced touch of his fingers. The girl squirmed dutifully. Her eyes were wide, her head thrown back so that she stared at the ornate ceiling. Her jaw hung slack, and she was panting with feigned pleasure.

“Do you like that?” Duncan taunted the girl. She nodded her head, not trusting the betrayal in her voice. Her legs and arms were trembling from the strain of being propped on the antique desk, supporting her weight while the man amused himself.

She was young – no more than nineteen – with dirty blonde hair and a pretty face. She closed her eyes as he leaned forward to kiss her and she could taste the alcohol fumes and acrid stench of cigar smoke on his lips.

“I have great plans for your career,” Duncan crooned. “It’s all mapped out. First we’ll exhibit you out of state – California perhaps… and then, maybe in another couple of years, we will do your first New York show right here in the gallery – if you’re a good girl for me.” He drew his hands possessively across her breasts. They were small, barely enough to fill his cupped palm, the nipples like perfect jewels of pink coral. The girl on the desk gave a soft moan.

Duncan watched the young woman’s face carefully with a predatory fascination as his fingers played across her body in an arrogant attempt to arouse her, then he strode across to the chair where she had folded her clothes and snatched up her panties.

With the heavy drapes drawn, the wood-paneled office was almost dark, even though outside the New York skyline was bathed in the warm light of a sultry summer afternoon. The air in the room was a thick blue haze of smoke. Duncan came back to the desk and leered at the girl.

“Open your mouth,” he said softly. “I don’t want your screams of pleasure to disturb the gallery clients.”

The girl opened her mouth with a wince of hesitation. Duncan pressed the silk of her panties between the girl’s lips, then stood back and shrugged off his jacket.

The sudden sound of a phone ringing startled him. He scowled at the interruption and his mouth drew into a thin line of disapproval. He snatched the phone up and pressed it to his ear.

“I told you – no interruptions.”

He listened for a moment and t

hen a small frown formed deep lines at the bridge of his nose between the dark brooding eyes. He clamped a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and turned on the naked girl. “Get your clothes and get out,” he snapped. “Now.”

The young woman scurried off the desk. He waited until she had fled from the room and then took a deep calming breath. “Put her through,” he demanded.

He heard a click on the line and then a brief hiss of static. “This is Duncan, darling,” he said urbanely.

“Thank God,” Connie’s voice down the long-distance connection sounded breathless with relief. “I wasn’t sure you would be working today.”

Duncan narrowed his eyes warily. “Wait a second,” he said. “I’m putting you on speaker phone.”

He stabbed buttons and then set the receiver down in the cradle. There was a brief crackle of sound and then Connie’s voice again, amplified. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Duncan said. He lit a cigar and then clamped it between his teeth while he smoothed the fingers of both his hands through his hair. He saw the girl’s panties. They had fallen on the floor at his feet. He picked them up, inhaled the musky scent of them, and then tucked the wisp of fabric into his coat pocket as a keepsake. “I was worried about you,” Duncan went on smoothly. He stepped across the office to the window and raised his voice to cover the distance. “I messaged you several times last night. You didn’t reply.” There was an implied edge of menace in his words, even though his voice carried the tone of a concerned lover. He waited through a hesitation of guilty silence.

“My phone was stolen, Duncan,” Connie lied. “I lost it last night. I stopped at a diner and my phone and handbag were taken.”

“Where are you calling me from?”

“A shop in the town,” Connie explained. “But I will replace my cell phone as soon as I leave here and message the number to you.”

She waited through another moment of precarious, telling silence, and then asked softly, “Duncan, are you alone?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I need your help.”

Duncan’s mouth curled into a reptilian smile. “More money?”

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