Читать книгу Familiar Obsession - Caroline Burnes - Страница 12

Ritzy! That’s the only word to describe this event. Pass the salmon popovers lightly drizzled with dill sauce—save a bonbon with crème de cacao center. This is a party with style and substance. Even if it weren’t for the food, the artwork is excellent. Especially this lovely watercolor of Dumaine Street after a spring rain. See the magnificent little calico kitty sitting on the third-floor balcony. She looks exactly like my Clotilde did when she was a sprite of a kitten.

It must be my advancing age, but this New Orleans artist, Liza Hawkins, looks like a child. But judging by her beautiful paintings, she’s a grown-up. There’s a certain sensuality in the watercolors, and a bit of sadness. Very interesting. As is the woman herself. Those long curls remind me of the tale of Rapunzel, and her long legs remind me of a runway model. The way she pays such close attention to everyone tells me that she’s not the typical egomaniac artiste. Those big brown eyes look as if she’s—haunted. Sad and haunted. I’ll have to keep a close eye on Miss Liza Hawkins. This is her night to shine and I get the feeling she’s about to burst into tears. As a cat who smells a mystery, my whiskers are a-twitchin’.

LIZA HAWKINS WAS ALMOST afraid to glance around the crowded reception room of LaTique Gallery. The drone of conversation bouncing off the historic old brick walls was almost more than she could bear—not the noise, but the fact that so many people had come to the opening of her show. The success of the event was so stupendous that she was terrified it was all a dream. Any moment, she’d awaken to discover she was in her bed on the third floor of the gallery.

Alone.

As she had been for the past five years.

“Liza, darling, the show is superb.”

She turned to speak to Anita Blevins, the art critic for the local newspaper, The Times Picayune. “Thanks, Anita. I’m in shock.”

“You’re on your way to the top,” Anita predicted. “I’ve decided to use a photo of this opening on the section front. I know this isn’t a good time for in-depth questions, so let’s have lunch tomorrow for an interview.”

“Sure.” Liza felt as if her fairy godmother had waved a magic wand. She was thirty-five and had been painting for twenty years. No one had ever predicted success for her—except Duke.

Even the thought of him was painful. She tried to control the frown, but it was too late. She’d been caught in a moment of pain—and her manager was bearing down on her.

“Liza dear, wipe that sour expression off your face and mingle.” Pascal Krantz’s face was a mask of pleasure, but his voice was iron. “I’ve busted my chops to get your show this much coverage. Your pleasant lifestyle is due to the fact that your work is now selling for big bucks. Look, the television cameras are on us. Smile!”

Liza obediently smiled up at her manager. “Thanks, Pascal. I do appreciate it. It’s way beyond all expectations. Look at the people. How did you get Delta Burke and Gerald McRaney to come?”

“They live right around the corner. Everyone likes to support a talented artist, Liza. I just had to make sure they realized how talented you are.” His hand squeezed her arm. “And you are talented. The problem is that you don’t believe it.”

Liza nodded. She hated to talk about herself. “Thank you for arranging this. And the way the pictures are displayed is beautiful.”

“You have your friend Eleanor Curry to thank for that. She recommended the artistic director for the show. And here the Currys are.” He stepped back as Eleanor and Peter walked up.

“At last,” Eleanor said, giving Liza a hug. “The paintings are incredible, Liza. Simply beautiful. I knew from the first time I saw your drawings in college that you were destined for great things. And now I can tell everyone you were my college roommate.”

“It’s a dream come true,” Liza said. She was staring at her longtime friend but shifted her focus to Eleanor’s handsome husband, Peter Curry. “I understand the black cat came with you.” She pointed to Familiar, who was on a chair perusing the buffet table.

“He heard there was good food,” Peter said. “We tried to leave him behind, but—”

“The television cameras love him!” Pascal said. “I couldn’t have thought of a better ruse myself. Let him be. He’s welcome to all the food he can eat. And the way he wanders around viewing the paintings. It’s almost as if he were capable of judging art.”

“I wouldn’t want to try to stop him from eating,” Eleanor said with a laugh.

“He’s the cat who was responsible for bringing you and Peter together, isn’t he?” Liza asked. Her old roommate had been far luckier in love than she had. Eleanor and Peter’s marriage had resulted in a beautiful daughter, Jordan, and a strong family unit. And Liza hadn’t been told, but it seemed to her that Eleanor had a very telling glow. They’d have plenty to talk about when the gallery opening was over and they could have some privacy.

“Yes, Familiar was the instigator of our relationship,” Eleanor said dryly. “He’s, shall we say, unusual.”

“Bring him with you Friday. We’re scheduled for lunch, aren’t—” Liza’s gaze was drawn by sudden movement outside the gallery windows. LaTique was located on St. Ann Street in the French Quarter, not exactly the most lively part of town. Though the raucous Bourbon and Royal streets were only a few blocks away, St. Ann was basically residential. The building she occupied was three stories, a narrow structure with her gallery on the first floor, her studio on the second, and her apartment on the third.

“Yes, Friday at Napoleon’s,” Eleanor confirmed. “I want to hear all about your career, the future, the museums and galleries where your paintings are now hanging. You’ve come into the homestretch of success, Liza, and it’s about time.”

“Yes.” She heard her friend’s kind words and immediately sought a change of subject. Her success was phenomenal—and troubling. Instead of the total satisfaction she once expected upon achieving success, she’d found emptiness.

At one time, she’d been driven to paint the street scenes of New Orleans that had recently made her the darling of art patrons. Now, though, the watercolors were less important. Her artistic passions were something else, something darker. Something that she had to keep a secret even from her oldest friend, Eleanor Curry, who’d come all the way from Washington, D.C., for her opening.

A dark flicker of a moving shadow outside the front window of the gallery caught her attention once again. Her heart rate tripled, and she felt the flush of blood to her skin.

“Liza darling, your friend was saying that she wanted to purchase the painting of the young girl in the rain puddle.”

Liza felt Pascal’s strong fingers pressing into the muscles of her arm. She knew she was drifting away, fading from reality and entering her own private hell, but she couldn’t stop herself.

The flicker of movement came at the edge of the window again. Her attention sharpened even as she tried to combat it with rational thought. It was only her imagination. This gallery opening, this event, was something she’d planned long ago. Five years ago. With Duke Masonne. But how the plan had changed. Now she was alone, and though the success was all hers, it was a lonely price to pay.

“Liza, are you okay?” Eleanor’s brown eyes were narrowed with concern.

“Yes, of course.” Liza tried to focus on the party. But again someone standing out in the shadows moved. The glint of a white face flashed in the light spilling from the big gallery windows facing the street.

Liza’s heartbeat grew painful. It was insane. Duke had been gone five years, but there was something about the shadowy face that reminded her of him—made her hope it might be.

She felt her palms begin to tingle and the unpleasant sensation of perspiration on her brow.

“Liza?” Eleanor’s voice came from a long way away.

“I—” What could she say? Don’t pay any attention to me. I saw my ex-lover who disappeared five years ago. I’ve been seeing him around town lately, standing in dark alleys, outside Grizaldi’s when I go for groceries. I’m beginning to catch glimpses of him through the hanging bundles of elephant garlic and peppers at the French Market.

“Get a chair.”

She heard Pascal’s order and felt her body being pushed into a chair. But her attention remained on the window. The lighting outside was poor. It could have been a figment of her imagination. Or her mind slipping toward madness. At that thought, her heart rate increased even more. She felt the room spinning.

“Ice. Bring some ice and a cloth,” she heard Eleanor say.

But she couldn’t answer her, couldn’t reassure her that she was okay, just a little woozy and terrified.

“Don’t do this now,” Pascal whispered in her ear. “We can’t allow this show to fall into a dramatic tragedy. Your work will be overshadowed by the drama of your behavior, Liza. Pull yourself together and stop whatever this is.”

Pascal’s words almost penetrated. She could feel her heart slowing, feel her lungs expanding as she was finally able to draw in a deep breath.

And then she looked out the window.

The light from the gallery spilled clearly across the features of Duke Masonne’s face. The hair was longer, the face leaner, more lined. But it was Duke.

She pushed Pascal back with a movement so abrupt she almost made him fall. In an instant, she was on her feet, the elegant black heels she’d purchased just for this event clacking on the Italian-tile floor. In five long strides, she was pulling open the door, the bell jangling madly as she dashed out into the street.

“Duke!” she called out. “Duke!”

Far at the end of the block, a young couple turned and stared at her. Other than that, the street was empty.

She felt a presence at her feet and looked down to find the cat standing beside her. “He was here,” she said aloud. “I don’t care what they say, I saw him. I’m not losing my mind. I’m not.”

A spring breeze teased the skirt of her black dress, and Liza found that she simply couldn’t return to the party. She stood on the street, the empty street, and forced her lungs to draw air in and out. She’d made a fool of herself. This was the one night when her behavior was critical, and she’d run out of her own gallery, her own party, as if she were a madwoman. The terrifying thing was that she was beginning to believe she might be completely insane. Her manager hadn’t said as much, but Pascal had been worried enough about her lately to begin recommending a visit to a psychiatrist.

“Liza?”

Eleanor’s soft voice and her gentle hand drew Liza back from her dark thoughts.

“Come back inside with me,” Eleanor prompted.

“I can’t,” Lisa whispered. “I’m such a fool.”

Eleanor gave her hand a comforting pat. “A fool is a long way from what you are. Now come inside. Everyone’s worried about you. The best thing is to walk back in, give a smile, and then I’ll say you have a migraine. I’ll see that you can escape upstairs.”

Liza’s relief was so deep and quick that even she had to laugh weakly at her pathetic response. “Promise? I just can’t stay there any longer.”

“Migraine is the perfect excuse.” Eleanor hesitated. “Just as long as you and I both agree that we have to get to the bottom of the real problem here. We can lie and say you have a headache, but we have to fix whatever is really wrong.”

Liza started to reply, but her voice broke. She finally turned and looked into her friend’s troubled brown eyes. “God, Eleanor, I don’t know if I can fix it. What if I’m going insane?”

“I doubt that,” Eleanor said stoutly. “I’ve known you for a very long time, Liza. You were never in doubt of who you were or where you wanted to go in life. I think maybe that success has caught you unprepared. It is terrifying to suddenly discover that your dreams have come true. Lots of people have trouble adjusting. That’s what you’re going through—a scary adjustment period.”

Liza clung to the possibility. “Do you really believe that?”

Eleanor put her arm around Liza’s shoulders. “I do. But first things first. Let’s go back inside, smile and show everyone that you’re fine. Then we’ll escape. Okay?”

“Okay.” With Eleanor’s support and the black cat at her heels, Liza steeled herself against the trauma of reentering the gallery. She met the expectant faces of her guests with a smile.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “My head.” She reached up to touch her temple, aware of the black humor associated with such a gesture. To children, such a gesture meant someone was “touched in the head.”

“It’s a migraine,” Eleanor said. “Liza used to have them in college. Blinding pain, you know. The terrible, terrible stress of being so talented and being the center of attention.” She said the last lightly.

“Yes, sudden success can be traumatizing,” Pascal Krantz added as he came to Liza’s other side. “I should have expected this. Liza is so shy and retiring. All of this attention, why it’s just too much!”

“Yes,” Liza agreed. She gave Pascal’s arm a squeeze. He’d picked up perfectly on Eleanor’s cue, and she could see clearly that soon she’d be able to escape the party, to retire to the privacy of her third-floor apartment. Pascal and Eleanor would make it okay.

“Liza’s sensitive to light,” Eleanor said. “I’m going to put her to bed in a dark room and call the doctor.”

Before anyone could say anything further, Eleanor led Liza to the small elevator at the back of the gallery.

“A million thanks,” Liza whispered.

“Thank me by getting to the bottom of this,” Eleanor answered.

THE ELEVATOR DOOR is about to shut, but a fast black cat can make it. Whew! Thank goodness I dropped that extra pound I gained at Christmas. Another sixteen ounces and I would have been a crushed kitty.

So I’m headed up to the artist’s lair. How exciting. And even better, the color is returning to Liza’s face. For a minute there, I thought she might actually have seen a ghost.

What did she see? By the time I got to the street, it was empty. But she saw something. Or she thought she did.

Now as a student of humanoids, I’d say that Liza thought she saw something terrible. She had the look of a person who’s witnessed a tragic accident. A wreck. A fire. A kidnapping. Something truly awful.

Yet she ran toward it. Which tells me that her expression and her actions are at odds. There’s a medical expression for such behavior—conflicted. The only analogy I can come up with is a cat who sees a dish of grilled grouper, wants to eat it, then spits at it and runs away. In other words, a very sick kitty. Then again, artists are known for their erratic behavior.

I shall withhold judgment until further investigation, which I’m about to conduct right now. While Eleanor puts our little painter to bed, I’m going to inspect her digs.

MIKE DAVIS RAN HIS FINGERS through his hair. He needed a haircut in the worst kind of way. And he missed his cowboy hat. At the thought, he felt an odd homesickness. Funny, when he’d first taken the job at Gabe and Rachel Welch’s ranch, the Circle C, he’d never anticipated that he’d come to call the ten-thousand-acre spread home.

It was a home of harsh realities, in weather and in the heart. For the past five years, he’d worked every fence line, herded the cattle, birthed the calves and trained the horses. It had become home.

And now he was over a thousand miles away, in the spring humidity of New Orleans, Louisiana, wandering the streets like a…what? A ghost? A man without a home or identity?

Mike glanced in the mirror. He’d grown accustomed to seeing the reflection of his features, though truthfully, for the past five years, he’d hardly had time to stop and look at himself. Looks didn’t matter much on a cattle ranch. Not for a man, a cow or a horse. It was a life where skill and talent counted for everything. Good looks—and Mike had been told by more than a few cowgirls that he had some nice features—were just an extra blessing.

But he might as well have been the phantom of the opera or the hunchback of Notre Dame, based on Liza Hawkins’s reaction to him. He terrified her. And if it wasn’t because of his looks, then it had to be because of his actions.

He turned away from the mirror with a growing sense of frustration and took long strides across the room to the painting he’d just purchased. He’d saved most of his wages for the past five years—plus, he had uncanny luck at poker—he could afford to live well, for a while. Liza Hawkins’s painting had been irresistible. It was a watercolor so filled with afternoon light that he felt as if he’d lived the moment. He knew exactly the shade of terra-cotta that would show through in the old brick dampened by rain and then dazzled by sunlight. He knew the crooked texture of the bricks used as roadbed and the intense green of the shrubs. He knew that scene. But how did he know it?

More importantly, how did he know the artist, Liza Hawkins?

From the pocket of his jeans he drew out the worn business card. Liza Hawkins, artist. 225 St. Ann. New Orleans, Louisiana. It was the only personal possession that had been on him when he woke up in a North Dakota hospital five years before. He’d been found, beaten into unconsciousness, in a boxcar at a small train depot. Three days later, he’d regained consciousness in the intensive care unit of Dola County Hospital. From there, fate had taken hold of him with a benevolent hand.

He replaced the card and continued to examine the painting, moving slowly around his rented apartment until he’d visited all five of the canvases he’d purchased in the past five months. All were Liza’s, and all depicted French Quarter scenes that somehow seemed to Mike to be a part of his personal history.

That was why he was in New Orleans—to find his past. He wasn’t certain he was in the right city or the right state, but it was the only place he knew to start.

The sharp ring of the telephone drew him out of his thoughts. When he answered, he felt his face melt into a smile.

“Rachel,” he said, instantly picturing the elderly woman who’d seen him in the hospital and somehow found it in her heart to want to help. “I’m fine,” he reassured her. “Perfectly fine.”

“Bristo’s been standing in the corral looking out toward the range,” Rachel Welch said. “He’s pining for you, Mike. We’re missing you, too. It’s calving season and we’re feeling the pinch.”

Mike’s smile increased. Rachel Welch was using both barrels to make him feel bad—his horse and the fact that all hands were needed during calving season on the ranch he might one day inherit.

“You know I’d be there if I could. I have to finish this. I want to be certain I’m the man you and Gabe think I am—the man you treat as your son.”

There was a pause. “You think you have to finish it,” Rachel said slowly. “Mike, whatever you were in the past, you are a son to me and Gabe now. Whatever you did, it doesn’t matter to us. I’ve never known a better judge of a man than Gabe Welch. You’ve won his respect, Mike. And his heart. That’s what matters, not a past that you can’t even remember.”

“It matters to me,” Mike said slowly. “I don’t even know my real name.”

“Mike Davis has worked here for five years. It’s a good enough name.”

“Rachel, I tried to move on. You know I did. But I can’t go forward until I know my past.”

“I told Gabe he shouldn’t have put you on the spot about the ranch. I told him just to make out the will and leave it all to you without telling you. None of this would have come up.”

Mike hesitated. There was a certain amount of truth in Rachel’s accusation. He’d settled into ranching, acquiring the skills and the tremendous knowledge it took to keep cattle alive and thriving through the cold North Dakota winters. Figuring ways to stretch grasslands and outwit droughts. In the long days of hard work, he’d found satisfaction and managed to keep concerns about his past at bay. But when Gabe had pulled him aside and told him that he was heir to the Circle C, Mike had found himself up against the wall of his unknown past. He couldn’t allow Gabe and Rachel to hand everything they held precious and dear over to him until he was certain his past wouldn’t impact his future.

“The ranch is part of it. But eventually, I would have had to learn the truth.”

“Cowpatty!”

“Rachel,” Mike admonished gently.

“Listen to me, Mike. The past can be like quicksand. It can pull you down into darkness. You and I both know there’s a reason you don’t remember. Whatever it is, you left it way behind. You have a good life up here. I’m afraid if you keep digging and digging, you’re going to find something that—”

“I have to know the truth.” Mike’s grip on the phone increased. “Don’t you see? If I can’t face the truth, I’ll always see myself as a coward, as a man who couldn’t face up to the consequences of his past.”

“Have you talked to the artist woman?”

“Not yet,” Mike admitted. Even the mention of Liza Hawkins made his stomach tighten.

“Well, get on with it. Just go up to her and ask her point-blank.”

Mike nodded, then realized Rachel couldn’t see the gesture. “I will. It’s just that whenever she catches a glimpse of me, she acts terrified. I went by her gallery tonight, and she was having a big party there. I was looking in the window and she saw me. Rachel, it was like she hated me.” He didn’t have to ask the question that tormented him. What if he’d hurt her in some way?

“If you’re going to confront the past, then do it and get back up here. I know you’ll run out of money eventually. You’ll come home to us.”

“I will,” Mike promised. “I certainly will.”

“Be careful, Mike,” Rachel added. “Already I hear a change in your voice. It’s my biggest fear that you’ll end up caught in the web of the past. Leave the darkness behind you, son. Come on home and work on the new life you have with me and Gabe.”