Page 51 of Ruthless Cross

She frowned, wondering if Layana was right. It was difficult to believe that Arthur had been comfortable dealing in stolen art.But what about the pictures, the second phone, the calls to Gretchen Vale?

"Do you know Gretchen Vale?" she asked Layana. "She runs a gallery in Laguna Beach. She and Arthur exchanged quite a few calls before his death."

Layana frowned. "He was unhappy with her. They had an intense conversation last week. But I don't think she would have killed him, because I heard him say he wasn't going to pay her until she delivered. Why would she murder someone who owed her money?"

"What was she supposed to deliver?"

"I don’t know. And that's all I have to say. No one in the art world would have killed Arthur. He was a benefactor, a patron of many struggling artists. No one had a reason to kill him, except your mother."

She frowned as Layana once again brought the conversation back to her mom. "Or you," she said impulsively. "Maybe he wasn't going to leave my mom. Maybe you finally figured that out."

Layana's jaw dropped, anger filling her eyes. "Get out."

"I'll go. But don't threaten my mother again."

Layana heaved the cup of coffee in her hand straight at her. Callie managed to jump to the side before it hit her and then she ran out of the gallery.

When she got into her car, she automatically flipped the locks, her heart pounding against her chest. Maybe she shouldn't have taunted Layana, but the words had come out before she could stop them.

And what if she was right?Who better than to throw Arthur over the railing than a lover who'd suddenly realized he was never going to leave his wife?

She needed to talk to Flynn. She pulled out of her spot and drove quickly back to her apartment.

Chapter Twelve

"You did what?"Flynn asked, pulling the car over to the side of the road, as Callie's shocking words echoed through his head. He'd picked her up five minutes earlier and was only two blocks from her apartment, when she'd told him she'd gone to Layana's studio.

"Why are we stopping?" she asked nervously.

"Because I need to hear exactly what you did."

"I found Layana and I went to talk to her," she repeated.

"Why the hell would you do that?" He shifted in his seat so he was facing her.

She frowned at his words. "Why are you angry? This is a good thing. I know who she is."

"It's not a good thing. This is an investigation, and you might have just screwed it up."

"You didn't even know who she was or where she was. I figured it out, and you weren't available, so I acted on my own. Do you want to hear what I found out or not?"

He drew in a quick breath, knowing his anger wasn't so much about the fact that she'd acted on her own but that she could have put herself in a dangerous situation. The last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt. "All right, start at the beginning."

"I was going through my mom's email. We looked at her texts last night, but I was curious what was going on in her emails, and there was one with a photo of a woman painting Arthur's portrait, only Arthur was nude in the portrait and the back of the woman was bare. All I could see was her black hair. I actually printed it out, so you can see it." She reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to him.

He glanced at the photo. It was exactly as she'd described.

"In the email, the woman said that this was the way she saw Arthur, and I started thinking about the portrait. My mom paid for it to be done. It was her birthday gift to Arthur. He'd always said he wanted an oil portrait of himself. So, a few months into their marriage, she found who she considered to be the right artist, a woman named Layana."

"But you didn't recognize the name yesterday."

"No, because I never knew the name. But I went into my mother's bank account to see who she paid for the portrait and that's when I realized it was Layana Vazquez. Her studio is in Century City. I went by there, thinking it was probably closed, but while I was out front, Layana came out of the bagel shop next door and I recognized her hair from the photo. She's also the one who sent the text, by the way. We went into her studio to talk."

"You just went in, with no thought to your own safety?"

"I did have a thought," Callie admitted. "But she'd been crying, Flynn. She looked like hell. She felt like a very sad person, not a dangerous one."

"Even though she threatened your mother?"

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