Page 34 of One Last Secret

He raises an eyebrow. “YousawAnnie?”

“Yes. Not her, of course, but a painting of her on the walls of the cave. She and Victor… well, I don’t know if they were lovers or if she only posed naked for him, but there’s no mistaking that it’s her. She lived with Elias for months, and Victor was smitten with her.”

“You know all of this from his journal?”

“Yes. He spoke of her as a fairy princess of transcendent beauty.”

“How romantic.”

“Yes. The painting in the cave… he made that the day before she left. Or he started it the day before she left.”

“You think he might know where she went?”

“I think so. If anyone still living would know, he would. Wemustfind him, Sean. For Celeste’s sake, and for Annie’s.”

“Well,” he says, “Evelyn has nothing to do with it, but I have an idea who might.”

I sit up, ignoring the aches in my body. “Who?”

He grins. “Lisa Reinhardt.”

“I knew it! How did you find out?”

He chuckles and lifts a hand. “Hold on. I saidmightbe. I haven’t confirmed anything yet. But I followed up on the names you gave me. I headed to the Carmel Art Gallery and pretended to be a journalist forArtmagazine. I told Mr. Marcus Fairfax that I was writing a piece on Victor Holloway.”

“You said hisname?When he’smissing?You fool, what if he reports you to the police?”

“I don’t think he will. He doesn’t want to be next after all.”

I sigh and rub my temples. “Your confidence is endearing and infuriating.”

“Do you want to hear what I have to say, or—”

“Yes, I want to hear what you have to say.”

He gives me a look of mock sympathy. “Poor Mary. If only everyone was as sensible as she.”

“Sean—”

“All right, all right. In my defense, you bloody Christing deserve it to hell.”

I can’t quite stifle a chuckle at that. “Fair enough. What did you learn from Marcus?”

“Well, I took the jolly lad to a pub on the beach. Got him a couple of cocktails and a couple of beers. Boy did his tongue loosen after that.”

I settle in for an unnecessarily long story. It would be nice if Sean was the sort of person who got to the point quickly, but one can’t win everything, I suppose.

“Anyway, it turns out that Miss Reinhardt is not in the best straits financially.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Oh,oh.It seems that she is relying quite heavily on Victor for income. Evidently, he’s the only artist who will work with her after a few scandals suggested that Miss Reinhardt might not be entirely honest in her dealings.”

“But why would she kill him then? If she needs his money, she would want him alive and well and working.”

“She would, if he were willing to listen to her. Unfortunately, Victor is a rather stubbornartiste.”

This matches what Lisa herself told me. “So he was refusing to make his work more commercially palatable.”

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