Page 19 of Drawing Home
“I felt so rushed to get out of the house today, so blindsided. Taking the painting was just my attempt to have some control over the situation. But all of his other work is there, just waiting to be pillaged by whatever philistine has hijacked his estate. I need to catalog everything that’s there or it could be lost!”
“Okay.” Kyle sat up, rubbing his eyes. When he finally focused on her, she didn’t recognize his expression at first. And then she realized he was looking at her with pity. Pity! “Bea, I feel for you. I do. I know what it’s like to want something and have it taken away from you. It’s not easy to recover from that. So I’ll drive you back tomorrow. You return the painting, and then you can do whatever last-minute stuff you need to do to make yourself feel better. But then, Bea, that’s it. I’m going back to Manhattan with or without you.”
Chapter Eight
Early-morning clouds rolled in, and Bea tried not to take it as a sign. She slammed the trunk of the car closed and strode into Windsong’s side entrance with a sense of resolve. Kyle trailed behind her, carrying the painting.
In the light of day, the wordstrespassingandtheftnagged at her in a way they had not late last night. But the new “owner” of the house was illegitimate—of that she was certain. And so she was doing nothing wrong.
Just a few hours ago, she’d had the surprisingly belated idea to contact her own attorney, Richard Fadden. He knew Victor Bonivent, and he knew Henry—he could connect the dots and fix this problem. She got him on his cell just as the sun was coming up.
“It’s a lengthy and complicated process to contest a will,” he told her. “It will cost you.” She said she’d give him a blank check.
Kyle was clearly in a hurry to getUntitled Blueback on the wall. He nearly tripped over a sculpture in the hallway.
“Be careful!” she said.
He ignored her. “Where does this belong?”
She directed him to the corridor leading to the guest suite. When he had secured it back in place, he said, “Okay. Now let’s go.”
So impatient! “Not yet. I told you I need to catalog the art. If you want to help things go faster, then walk through with me and I’ll call out the titles of the work for you to write down.”
“And then you’ll leave?”
“Yes, then I’ll leave.”
They climbed the stairs to the library. Until this month, it had been years since she’d seen the room, and it had impressed her all over again with its sheer volume of books. Henry was a reader, yes, but there was a collector’s mentality to the accumulation of hundreds and hundreds of novels, biographies, coffee-table books, and works on art history, art theory, and literary criticism. She pulled a few random hardcovers from the shelves but then a framed picture on the wall caught her eye. She replaced the books and walked over to get a better look.
Bea felt certain she knew all of Henry’s work. But there, between two of the bookshelves, was a drawing she’d never seen before. She inched closer to it, her stomach tightening. Sure enough, in the lower right corner was the loopy scrawl of his initials and a date—just eleven months earlier. Had Henry changed artistic direction in the past year or two of his life? What else did she not know about him? But no, she could not let herself think there were pockets of his life, creative or otherwise, to which she was not privy, because to admit that would be to allow a sliver of possibility that he had left his house and his work to a stranger for valid reasons.
“These drawings are new. Write them down as…sketches one, two, and three.”
Kyle peeked out into the hallway.
“Am I boring you?” Bea snapped.
He turned back to her, pressed his forefinger to his lips, then whispered, “I hate to break it to you, but I hear people downstairs.”
It looked more like a sculpture than a house, a monument carved from stone and glass and steel. Emma had the nerve to turn the key in the front door only because of the palpable excitement of her daughter standing next to her.
“It’s exactly how I imagined it!” Penny said once she, Emma, and Angus were inside.
How could her daughter have imagined this?
It was bright and spacious with shining wood floors and floor-to-ceiling windows and sleek furniture. It was a house out of a magazine or a movie. It was a dream house.
This was real. This was happening.
“It’s amazing how much space rich folks think they need for themselves,” Angus said.
“Maybe he wanted someone to share it with but couldn’t find anyone,” Penny said. “So he gave it to us.”
Angus shook his head. Last night, when Emma told him what was going on, he’d said the whole thing seemed fishy. Emma had agreed with him then, but all that was forgotten now that she was standing in the space that she realized was going to change her life. For the first time in a very long while, she didn’t feel like she was treading water. Her daughter would have a beautiful place to grow up. And when she was an adult, Penny could sell it and have financial security.
Penny ran from room to room, practically jumping up and down with excitement. Emma followed close behind, her own joy barely any more contained.
“We should have brought bathing suits,” Penny said, gazing out the window at an infinity pool. Beyond it, a stretch of beach along the bay. Angus moved to stand next to her. “What do you think?” Penny said to him.
