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The door shuts, but I still hear her reply—“You embarrassed me”—and the way her voice trembles with accusation with those words. “Why would you ask him to buy my work?”
I don’t hear his reply, their voices moving farther down the hallway, but I heard what was important. She’s embarrassed. But is she really, or is it an act? “Fuck,” I murmur. I want it to be real. I want to prove she’s innocent, but the facts are inescapable. There were checks equaling damn near a million dollars written to her mother by my father, and notes that lead me to suspect blackmail. And my father and her mother died of unexpected heart attacks, and my father died after her mother. That points to Faith double-crossing her mother, but if she did it for the money, where’s the damn money?
I push off the wall and press my fingers to my temples. Maybe her mother had another partner who took the money. Or maybe Faith is in bed with that partner, who’s hiding the money. I unbutton my jacket, my hands settling on my hips. I don’t do stupid, and I’m not going to start now. My father ran through women, including my mother. He didn’t write them checks, and he damn sure wouldn’t write nearly a million dollars to one woman. And no one proves guilt while trying to prove innocence. I cannot lose my focus. I have to kiss Faith to taste the murderess beneath the woman, and I have to tear down that wall of hers to ensure she can’t hide behind it. I’m not here to save her. I’m here to expose her, even destroy her. And I have to make sure that every moan I get from her is one step closer to one, or both, of those goals.
I walk to the door and yank it open, stepping into the hallway, my stride measured, with purpose. Find Faith. Get her out of here and alone. Fuck her. Expose her.Own her. With this intention driving my every step, I find my way to room 4C, where the mostly seated crowd encircles another stage, the easel on display there still covered. Scanning the chairs middle, left, and right, as well as the rows of people standing behind each, I locate Faith standing behind the chairs in the center row, Josh by her side, and I watch as he pats her shoulder, then leaves his hand there. And she lets him.
I inhale on yet another rush of possessiveness over this woman that could easily lead me to Faith’s side, pulling her to me. But I am not a man to act rashly or without calculation. My mentor back in L.A., the smart, hard-ass bastard that he was, used to say that if you have a bird and it flies away, if it doesn’t come back you never had it in the first place. He was talking about clients and reliable witnesses, but I’ve found that premise to have broad reach. I’ve pursued Faith. It’s time for her to come to me. It’s in that moment of decision that an elegant woman I estimate to be in her late fifties to early sixties takes the stage, her dress floral, her hair long and gray.
“Hello everyone,” she says. “I’m Katie Wickerman, Chris Merit’s godmother, and I am so very proud to share his newest release. This one is special to him, and while I believe you will find it rather different for him, as well, I believe it’s his most brilliant work to date. But I won’t talk your ear off. Without further ado…” She reaches for the sheet. “I give you Rebecca.”
My spine straightens at the name of the painting, and when the sheet slides away, gasps and murmurs fill the room, while the familiar scene the work depicts punches me in the chest. It’s a beachfront, on a pitch-dark night, and yet you can make out the hundreds of people gathered there with lights in their hands. Honoring a woman named Rebecca, who, after months of being missing, was declared dead.
“And now I’ll hand the stage over to Kenneth Davis, our auctioneer,” Katie says while a short man with a Santa Claus beard joins her.
“We’ll open the bidding at fifty thousand dollars,” he announces, but right now, I’m not in this room. I’m back on that beach, reliving that night that was less than one year ago now. The cold wind. The heavy emotions. The profound way one woman brought together a city and touched so many hearts and lives. She certainly did mine.
“One hundred thousand,” the auctioneer calls out, snapping me back to the present, my gaze pulling left to find Faith still standing with Josh, and, delivering way more satisfaction than it should, his hand is no longer on her shoulder. I inhale and glance at the painting again, and I am suddenly far more connected to the many dark secrets of Rebecca’s life, death, and murder than ever before. I want this painting.
Decision made, I walk to the table positioned by the door and register to bid. Faith appears by my side, my beautiful bird returning to me at the same time “three hundred thousand dollars” is shouted out from the stage. “You’re going to bid?” she asks.
“I’m going to win,” I tell her, accepting my paddle as I hear “four hundred thousand dollars” shouted out. Not about to allow the auction to close before I win, I give Faith a nod and start walking, looking for a spot near the stage. A moment later, Faith catches up to me, pursuing me now, and then and only then do I snag her fingers with mine, guiding us to the right side of the stage, close enough for the auctioneer to see and hear me. “Five hundred thousand dollars,” he calls out. “No,” he amends quickly with another raised paddle. “Make that six hundred thousand.”
I release Faith’s hand, and she murmurs, “My God,” at the dollar figure and links her arm with mine. Touching me by choice, that free will she is showing motivating me to win my auction sooner rather than later and get her out of here. I hold up my paddle and call out, “One million dollars.”
The room seems to let out a collective gasp, but the auctioneer is not fazed. “We have one million dollars,” he says. “Do we have a million one?”
“A million fifty thousand,” a woman calls out.
I scan the crowd. A forty-something woman in a red dress is directly across from me giving me a wave, a smug look on her gaunt, overly made-up face that says she thinks she’s won.
“A million one,” I say loudly, lifting my paddle.
The woman scowls, and the room fills with murmurs before the auctioneer says, “Do I have a million two?”
My competition purses her pre-puckered lips and lowers her paddle, then sits. The auctioneer delivers final warnings, and it’s done. I’ve won my painting. Faith steps in front of me, gripping my lapels as she had in the bathroom. “You just bid a million dollars on one painting.”
A million one, I think, but I don’t point that out. “It’s a charitable donation,” I say instead.
Josh appears beside us and goes on the attack. “How the hell does an attorney have the money to pay that kind of bid?”
“Josh,” Faith snaps. “Stop.”
“I’ve invested well and inherited well,” I tell him. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“I want to invest where you invest,” he snaps.
“I’ll give you my guy’s name,” I say drily, “but I have to warn you. I make most of my own picks.”
“Of course you do,” he says, repeating the exact words Faith had used about me knowing Chris Merit earlier. I arch a brow, and he smirks. “Bottom line. You have money to throw around, and you thought you’d use it to impress Faith.”
He’s trying to take us back to our bathroom argument, and I’d shut him down, but Faith steps in first. “Josh,” Faith chides and looks at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, sweetheart,” I say. “I do want to impress you, but not with my money.” I glance at Josh. “Because what your agent here fails to understand is that smart people do not surround themselves with those chasing their money, or with any misplaced agendas.”
His eyes sharpen with hate before he spouts back with, “My agenda is to protect and support Faith.”
“I wasn’t aware we were talking about your agenda at all,” I say, making his misstep obvious.
