Rachel had quietly acted to counter his single-minded obsession with Harte Investments. She had centered him, given him a sense of connection. During the long, hard years when he had thrown himself into the struggle to create H.I., Rachel had been there, sometimes going toe-to-toe with him to remind him that he had other priorities, too. It was Rachel who had taught him the meaning of family. It was Rachel who had saved him from going down a path that would have left him a hollow shell of a man.
“Gabe and Hamilton don’t need my help,” he said. “They’ve shunted me off to a corner office on the floor beneath the CEO’s suite and made it clear they’ll call me if they need me.”
“I take it they don’t call often?”
“Nope. I’m getting a little bored here, to tell you the truth. I’m thinking of going over to the coast for a couple of days.”
“What’s wrong in Eclipse Bay?” she asked instantly.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Nick and Carson are there.”
“So? Thought I’d spend a little time with my great-grandson. Carson’s got a lot of me in him. Going to run an empire one of these days. He needs my guidance during his early, formative years.”
“You still haven’t told me what’s wrong.”
The problem with being married to a woman like this for so many decades was that she could read a man’s mind.
“Just had a call from Mitch,” he said carefully. “Seems like Nick and Octavia Brightwell are involved. Sort of.”
“Well, well.”
“What, exactly, does that mean?”
“It means it’s about time Nick finally got serious about a woman.”
“That’s the problem, according to Mitch,” Sullivan said. “He doesn’t think Nick is serious about Octavia.”
“Surely Nick wouldn’t have an affair with her?” Rachel sounded genuinely concerned now. “Not there in Eclipse Bay. Think of the gossip.”
“It’s the thought of Mitch trying to manage the situation on his own that worries me.”
chapter 12
“Honest opinion, Octavia.” Jeremy looked at the five pictures propped against the walls of the bedroom he was using as a studio. “I can handle it. Really. I think.”
She gazed into the depths of the painting in front of her. It was a portrait of Jeremy’s grandmother. It showed Edith Seaton seated in her antiques shop, a small, purposeful figure surrounded by the clutter of the past. There was an almost surrealistic quality to the old dishes and small relics housed in the glass cabinets and displayed on the tables.
The painting showed a room crowded with a lifetime of memories. Edith’s face was a rich tapestry of emotions and determination layered on each other with such a strong, clear vision that it was possible to see the personality of the woman in every stroke.
“It’s really quite wonderful, Jeremy.” She did not look up from the painting. “When you said that you wanted to show me some pictures, I had no idea they would be of this quality.”
Jeremy visibly relaxed. He looked pleased. “I did that one of my grandmother from a photo I took last year. You know, she’s lived her whole life in this town. Hardly ever traveled even as far as Portland. Eclipse Bay is her whole world.”
“How long has she been alone?”
“Let’s see, Granddad died eight, maybe nine years ago. That’s him in the framed picture hanging behind the counter. They both grew up here. Got married the day after they graduated from high school. They were together for nearly sixty years.”
She studied the picture-within-a-picture and was able to make out the features of a man with the thin shoulders that often accompanied age. There was a certain self-confident, almost rakish quality to the tilt of the man’s head. The viewer got the impression that at one time the senior Seaton had been a good-looking man and knew it.
“Sixty years is quite a marriage,” she said. “No one in my family ever managed to stay together that long.”
“Mom told me once that Granddad ran around a bit in his younger days. But Grandmother pretended not to know about his little escapades.”
“Your grandfather had his affairs right here in town?”
“I guess so. He lived here all of his life and didn’t do any traveling to speak of.”
She shuddered. “Must have been hard on your grandmother.”
“I’m sure it was. She’s got a lot of pride in the Seaton name.”
“Marriages are always mysterious when viewed from the outside.” She turned away from the painting. “I’d love to give you a show, Jeremy. But as I explained, to be important to your career, it would have to be held at the Portland gallery, not here in Eclipse Bay.”
“I know. Eclipse Bay isn’t exactly on the art world’s radar screen.”
“No, and I’m afraid that I’m booked solid in the city. I’ve got shows scheduled every month until the end of summer there and then I plan to sell both galleries.”
“I understand,” he said.
“But I can certainly hang a couple of your pictures in my gallery here in town and see if they sell. I have a hunch they will. You’ve got a real commercial talent. What do you say?”
“I’ll go with your intuition. You’ve got the eye, at least when it comes to art.”
“Meaning that I don’t have it when it comes to other things?”
“Okay, okay, I admit that I have some strong reservations about you seeing Nick Harte.”
“I thought so.” She folded her arms and propped one hip on the edge of the table. “He told me that you think he had an affair with your ex-wife.”
Jeremy looked stunned. Then his expression darkened and his face tightened with suppressed anger. “I can’t believe that he actually talked to you about that.”
“He didn’t discuss it in detail. He just made the statement that you thought your ex-wife had had an affair with him while you were still married.”
Jeremy’s hand closed into a fist. “So, he admitted it,” he said softly.
“No, he did not admit it. He just said that was what you believed.”
“It’s not a guess, you know.” Jeremy looked hard at the painting of his grandmother. “Laura told me she’d been with him.”
“Where is Laura now?”
“Getting ready to marry again, I hear. A lawyer in Seattle.”
“When did she meet him?”
“How the hell should I know? I don’t keep track of her private life these days.”
“You and Laura,” she said cautiously, “I assume the two of you were having trouble for a while before you split up?”
“Sure. We argued a lot toward the end. That’s usually what happens before you get a divorce, isn’t it?”
“That’s certainly the way it went in my family.” She watched him intently. “Were the quarrels bad?”
“Bad enough.”
“The kind of arguments in which both people say things that are calculated to hurt the other person as much as possible?”
Jeremy glanced at her, frowning. “Sometimes. Look, I really don’t want to rehash the events surrounding my divorce, okay? It’s not my favorite topic of conversation.”
“I understand. But I can’t help wondering if maybe Laura told you that she’d had an affair with Nick because she knew it would hit you harder than if she said she’d fallen in love with a man you’d never met. Also, it could have been a way of protecting the man she really was seeing at the time.”
“What is this? You think you have to defend Harte? Don’t waste your time.”
“What a terrible position to be in, trying to figure out whether to believe your lifelong friend or your spouse. No one should have to make that kind of decision.”
“Look, I’m not after sympathy here,” he muttered. “It’s over. I’ve moved on, like they say, okay?”
“Tell me something, did you ever ask Nick directly if he’d slept with Laura?”
“I told him once that I knew about them, yeah,” Jeremy growled.
“You accused him. You didn’t ask him.”
“What’s the difference? He denied it.”
“Did Nick ever lie to you in the past about anything else that was important?”
“What does the past have to do with this?”
“Did he?” she pressed gently.
“No. But, then, maybe he never had any reason to lie to me in the past.”
“You’ve been acquainted with him since you both were children. Have you ever known him to cheat or steal or betray a friend?”
“Things are different when it comes to sex,” Jeremy said with ominous certainty.
“Do you think so? I don’t. Cheaters cheat and liars lie. It’s what they do whenever things become inconvenient for them or when they can’t get what they want in any other way. Most of the people I’ve known who can lie to your face have had some practice. Aunt Claudia always said that scamming people was an art form that required skill and precision.”
Jeremy looked grim. “Your aunt would have known, from all accounts.”
“Yes. The only thing I can say in her defense was that she came to regret a lot of the damage she caused. But we’re not talking about her. Tell me about Laura. Looking back, can you recall occasions when she lied to you?”
Jeremy started to say something but he closed his mouth before uttering a word. He just stood there, gazing at one of the landscapes he had painted.
“How long did you know her?” she asked.
“We were married three months after we met. She thought she was—” He stopped.
“She thought she was pregnant?”
Jeremy nodded. “It was okay by me, although my family was a little put off by the rush, and Grandmother was mortified. She’s a little old-fashioned, you know.”
“Yes. I know.”
Jeremy grimaced. “She became my biggest supporter, however, after she found out that Laura came from a socially prominent family in Seattle. But as far as I was concerned, I was excited about starting a family. It felt right, you know? Nick had little Carson and I…Well, it didn’t happen for Laura and me. Turned out she wasn’t pregnant, after all.”
“She lied about it?”
He shoved his fingers through his hair, looking hunted. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I’ve sometimes wondered. She said it was a mistake at the time. The test didn’t work properly or something.”
“How long were you married?”
“Eighteen months. Like I said, her family was old Seattle money. Lots of connections. Her parents were never particularly thrilled with me. They felt she could have done better. Once or twice I got the feeling that maybe she’d married me just to defy them and then…”
“Came to regret her decision.”
“Things got worse in a hurry when I told her that I was thinking of moving to Eclipse Bay. I said it would be a good place to raise a family. She hated the idea so I put it off.”
“You like it here. Don’t you?” Octavia asked.
He regarded the painting of his grandmother for a while. “It’s strange, but I do kind of like it here. Feels like home, you know?”
A wistful feeling drifted through her. “Yes. I know.”
Sometimes feelings for places were wrong, she thought, but there was no need to go off on that tangent. Her intuition told her that Jeremy was, indeed, at home in Eclipse Bay. Like the Hartes and the Madisons, he had several generations of family history here.
She had made the mistake of believing that she belonged in Eclipse Bay, too, but that had been wishful thinking on her part. She knew that now. Her search for home was still ongoing.
“Just out of curiosity,” she continued, “did Laura have a problem with you spending time on your painting?”
Jeremy jerked slightly, clearly startled by the question. His mouth was a thin, hard line. “She called it ‘playing artist.’”
“One last question. Did you see much of Nick while you and Laura were married?”
Jeremy was quiet again for a while. Eventually he shook his head. “No. Things change when you get married, you know? Laura had her own set of friends. We hung around with them for the most part.”
“Yet she still found time to have an affair with Nick?” Octavia spread her hands. “Get real, Jeremy.”
“What the hell is this? You think you can just walk into this situation and analyze it without knowing all of the people involved?”
“I know something about Hartes. Lord knows, they’ve got their flaws, but I honestly can’t see any of the Harte men fooling around with another man’s wife.” She straightened away from the desk. “And after looking at your paintings, I know a bit more about you, too. You can see a person’s personality and character clearly enough to translate it onto a canvas. Try looking at Nick with your artist’s eye. Ask yourself how you would paint him.”
“Hell, you really have got it bad for him, don’t you?”
“My feelings for Nick have nothing to do with this discussion.” She dug her car keys out of her shoulder bag and went toward the door. “But I will tell you one thing, Jeremy. I won’t let you use me to punish him for what you think he did with Laura.”
chapter 13
“Hear you’re investigating that missing painting.” Sandy Hickson drew the squeegee across the BMW’s windshield with professional expertise and flipped the dirty liquid off with a flick of his wrist. “Just like that private eye guy in your books.”
Nick leaned against the side of his car while he waited for Hickson to finish servicing it. He studied Sandy through the lenses of his sunglasses. It was felt in some quarters that Sandy had been born to work in a gas station. Legend held that as a teenager, he’d had a penchant for collecting phone numbers off restroom walls, the kind that were preceded by the inviting phrase for a good time call…
Whether Sandy had ever gotten a date using one of the numbers he had found on the grungy white tiles in the station’s restroom was still an open question, but one thing was certain: The Eclipse Bay Gas & Go was a nexus point of local gossip.
“You read my books, Sandy?”
“Nah. Nothing personal. I don’t read a lotta fiction, y’know? I prefer magazines.”
“Yeah, I know the kind of magazines you favor. They’ve all got centerfolds featuring ladies whose bra sizes exist only in the realm of virtual reality. Talk about fiction.”
Sandy did not take offense. He dipped his squeegee into a bucket of water and aimed another swipe at the windshield. “I read ’em mostly for the articles, y’know.”
“Sure. Since you know what I’m after, you got anything for me?”
Sandy looked sly. “Been some talk going around about that painting.”
“Anything you think I can use to help me find it?”
“Well, now, a few people are saying that you’re getting warm.” Sandy snickered, evidently enjoying some private joke. “Real hot, in fact.”
The snicker became a guffaw.
Nick did not move. Sandy’s sense of humor had not matured much since his high school years.
“What have you heard?” Nick asked.
“Heard you were getting it on with the chief suspect, that’s what I heard. Whooee. You’re hot, all right, my friend. Probably couldn’t get much closer if you tried.”
Sandy could no longer restrain himself. He laughed so hard he lost control of the squeegee. It dropped into the bucket, splashing dirty water on his shoes. He paid no attention.
Nick watched him for a moment, contemplating his options. The urge to wring Sandy’s scrawny neck was almost overwhelming, but he exerted an effort and managed to resist the temptation.
“The chief suspect,” Nick repeated. “That would be Octavia Brightwell?”
“You got it.” Sandy went into another round of howls.
Nick made himself wait until Hickson’s laughter had subsided to a few snorts.
“Who told you that Octavia was the chief suspect, Sandy?”
“Couple of folks mentioned it.” Still chortli
ng a little, Sandy retrieved his squeegee.
“Give me a name, Sandy.”
“Well, Eugene, for one. B’lieve he mentioned it to me first.”
“Eugene Woods?”
“Yeah.”
“That would be the same Eugene Woods who is usually between jobs and spends most of his time at the Total Eclipse nursing a beer and associating with his old buddy Dickhead Dwayne and pretending to look for work?”
“That Eugene, yeah.” Sandy scrunched up his face into an expression of keen interest. “Why? You wanna talk to him?”
“Yeah. I think I want to talk to him.”
Alarm flickered in Sandy’s eyes. “Hang on, Nick, I don’t know as that’s a real smart idea. Eugene ain’t changed much since he was a kid. He didn’t get that nickname of Mean Eugene for no reason, y’know.”
“People change, Sandy. They mature.”
“Not Mean Eugene. He’s the same as he was back in third grade. Still hold you up for your lunch money if he can figure out a way to do it. And Dickhead’s the same, too. Always goin’ along with whatever Eugene wants him to do.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, Sandy.”
Nick shoved himself away from the side of the car and walked across the street to the entrance of the Total Eclipse Bar & Grill.
“What does that key open?” Gail asked.
Octavia glanced at the key hanging from the hook inside the storage closet. “I don’t know, to be honest. Nothing here in the gallery, that’s for sure. I tried it on all the locks. Must have belonged to Noreen. One of these days I’ll toss it out. But I hesitate to discard it until I know for certain that it doesn’t go to anything important.”
“I know what you mean. There’s something about a key that makes you think twice before throwing it out, isn’t there? Even when you don’t know what it unlocks.”
“Yes.” Octavia shut the closet door and turned around with a smile. “Okay, I think that’s it. Any other questions?”