“I’m not telling you,” Connie’s voice cracked, but she held his gaze with defiance.
Duncan shook his head and made a disappointed face. “You will,” he said with an edge of menace, then grinned. It twisted his mouth. “Because if you don’t, I will phone the bank and cut off your mother’s nursing home money. Then I will have you thrown out of the apartment I am paying for, then I will –”
Connie wheeled on him, her face suddenly a snarl. She thrust out a finger of accusation at him and Duncan flinched. He had seen her eyes and been shocked at what they had revealed. There had been a blaze of pure hatred unveiled – an inscrutable and merciless glare that he had not expected. It was gone in an instant, hidden so swiftly that it might have been an illusion.
“No!” Connie hissed. “No more threats, Duncan. No more, not ever again. Tonight it is my turn to threaten you,” she bristled.
Duncan set down the glass, all pretense of urbane charm burned away. He stood, mocking and belligerent, swaying on the balls of his feet. “Give it your best shot,” he said.
Connie went to the table and opened the briefcase. She laid down the first, smallest painting, and pushed it towards him so that it glided across the smooth surface. Duncan glanced at it – and froze.
He shot a glare at Connie. “You found others?”
Connie nodded carefully. “I bought the last two seascapes available,” she said. “This one I am giving to you, Duncan… in exchange for a waiver of all debts between us, all responsibilities, all sense of obligation. You get the painting, and I get to walk away from you and my guilt. No more will I have to cringe under your touch or feel revolted when you are too close to me. You take this painting and everything personal that existed between us is dissolved.”
Duncan narrowed his eyes. He picked up the painting carefully and saw the signature, then turned it over and read the handwritten message that had been penciled on the back of the canvas. He turned to Connie and his eyes were monstrous.
“You found him!”
Connie said nothing. Duncan spun on his heel and went pacing across the boardroom, prowling like a lion. His jaws were chewing thoughtfully and there was a fine sheen of sweat across his forehead. He came back to Connie at last, and gripped at her hands.
“Work with me!” he said, gazing into her eyes, suddenly brimming with enthusiasm and charm. His voice was filled with an effusive passion that seemed to light the dark corners of the room. “Think of it, Connie!” he exclaimed. “It would be the exhibition to end all exhibitions. Imagine the publicity. A new Blake McGrath show. Together – you and me – we could make it happen.”
Connie’s face filled with loathing. “Go to hell,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “And for the record, Duncan, that dedication is dated five years ago. That’s no proof Blake McGrath is still alive, or that I found him.”
“Liar!” Duncan roared. He lashed out and slapped Connie across her face with his open hand. “I don’t need proof,” he roared maliciously. “It’s in your eyes!”
Connie’s head snapped to the side and a livid red mark burned on her cheek. She was pale with shock. She felt the sting of tears prickle in her eyes. Duncan stood over her, breathing hard, his rage seething. He clenched his hands, and then hammered his fists on the desk.
Slowly, carefully measuring each step, Connie went silently back to the brief case. “Do we have a deal for the painting?” she asked. Her voice had turned to ice.
Duncan threw his head back. She could see the veins in his neck standing thick as corded rope and his skin seemed to burn until it was red and swollen. “Yes,” he snapped.
Connie nodded. She wanted to press her hand to her cheek, to salve the sting with the cool of her palm, but instead she reached into the briefcase again, and Duncan’s eyes suddenly slammed back into focus.
“There is another painting,” Connie said simply. “I am offering it to you for purchase.” She set the second painting down on the table and closed the lid of the briefcase. “If you do not agree to my terms immediately, I will not hesitate to take it to another gallery in the morning.”
There were little bubbles of spittle at the corner of Duncan’s lips. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and took a long deep breath to compose himself. He reached for the canvas, and his eyes became as sensual as a lover’s caress. The painting was breathtaking. Duncan felt a fierce bewitched rise of passion and knew that he must own it – at any price.
“What do you want?” he growled.
“I want the sum of two hundred and ninety thousand dollars transferred into the account for my mother’s ongoing care, and I want a further five thousand, five hundred dollars in cash. Right now.”
Duncan’s face registered his disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly serious,” Connie said. “It’s a fair price. The painting is signed, and it’s the first new original work by the artist to come onto the market in a year.” To demonstrate her resolve, she reached for the painting to take it away from him, but Duncan could not bear to be parted from it. He slammed his hand down impulsively. “Alright!” he spat.
Connie stood quite still. For several seconds she did not move and there was just the sound of Duncan’s hoarse rasping breath. “I said now,” Connie prodded him like antagonizing a dangerous wounded animal.
Duncan flinched. Cold hateful retribution blazed in his eyes, but he stalked to a phone and stabbed at the numbers. He gave instructions to his secretary to issue the payment to the nursing home account, and then flung open a drawer of the liquor cabinet so violently that the bottles clinked and teetered. He threw three bundles of cash carelessly across the big table. “There’s six thousand,” he said and his eyes lit with cruelty. “Not a lot of cash for a whore.”
Connie put the money in the briefcase. Her hands were shaking, and a rise of nausea and relief washed over her like the burn of a fever. She felt herself sway with vertigo.
Duncan was watching her carefully. “Tell me,” he taunted in a wheedling voice. “Now that we’ve completed our transaction… how did you get the paintings?”
Connie shook her head, and her dark hair swished across her shoulders. “We haven’t completed our transaction until I confirm the money is in the nursing home account. That’s when you will get the second painting.”
Duncan stood back, gestured at the phone. He had composed himself now. His voice was deceptively calm, but Connie had lived through so many of his temper-driven storms she knew the respite would be brief. “Call,” he invited.
Connie went warily to the phone and dialed her sister’s number. She waited, grim-faced, until she heard Jean’s voice.
“Jean. It’s Connie. I need you to check the account balance for the nursing home,” she said. There was a brief pause, and then Connie’s voice became insistent. “Just do it – please.”
Connie stared at Duncan, watching the man as he pored over the painting, his face a mask of rapture. After another long moment she nodded her head and hung up, Jean’s joyous voice of incredulous amazement ringing like an echo in her ears.
“Satisfied?” Duncan looked up at her and asked. “Now, tell me where you got the paintings.”
“I bought them.”
He laughed cruelly. “I bet you did,” he drew his eyes cynically down her body and the wrench of his lips became lazy disdain. “What did you use to pay for them? You don’t have any money. Did you whore yourself out – spread your legs and close your eyes while he grunted on top of you?” He looked at her with contempt, like she was cast-off and somehow sullied. “Did you show him some of the tricks I taught you – thrill him with that talented mouth and body?”
Connie felt the scald of her revulsion burn the back of her throat. “Not every man has the same low gutter morals that you do, Duncan. Some men with honor still exist.”
She spun on her heel, desperate for the door, and snatched up the briefcase. Duncan’s voice called after her, rising strident with his fury. “You’re finished in New
York!” he screamed. “Finished! You’ll never work in this town again.”
Connie stopped in the doorway, turned back and forced an enigmatic smile to her lips that she knew would infuriate the man more than anything. “That’s fine,” she said. “I don’t plan on being in New York for more than another day anyhow.”
Connie pulled the boardroom door quietly closed behind her and strode to the elevator. The steel doors whispered shut, and as they did, she slumped down to the cold floor, weak, exhausted, and vulnerable. She was trembling with relief. Her shoulders began to shake uncontrollably, and at last the tears she had fought so hard to hold back came spilling down her cheeks, scalding her eyes.
20.
Connie woke the next morning in her tiny apartment and realized instinctively that she no longer belonged there. The noise of the city outside her window was like a nagging headache – a sound she had become so accustomed to now grated – and the need to be away from New York was like an itch that irritated beneath her skin.
She spent time on the phone, listened to her sister sob more happy joyful tears, and then asked Jean to transfer forty thousand dollars of the money Duncan had paid into her own account. That would leave a quarter of a million to cover the ongoing costs of their mother’s nursing home care. The burden of responsibility that had buried Jean’s life in a misery of work and worry had been forever lifted.
Then Connie called the movers, arranged to have the few bulky items she owned put into storage, and began to pack what she could carry downstairs to the trunk of her car.
The apartment was leased in Duncan’s name and Connie had no doubt that he had already taken vindictive steps to have her removed. She wanted to be gone, away from him and the cloying odors of smog and fumes – away from the destructive memories of her life with him.
Her heart was calling her.
Connie had never considered herself a lover of the ocean. She had spent her childhood in the Midwest. Vacations to the coast had been infrequent, and never special. But now the salty air, the cleansing breeze, and the unbridled majesty of the waves was like a haunting siren of the sea, beckoning her with a sound that seemed to touch at her very soul.
She had driven more miles in the last few days than she could ever recall. She climbed behind the wheel one last time – and that knowledge was enough to compel her.
One last time.
She was heading north, back to Maine, not merely to start her life over again…
She was starting anew.
21.
By the time Connie crossed the bridge back into Hoyt Harbor, night had fallen, and the waterfront promenade was lit with a string of gaily-colored lights. There were crowds of vacationers on the foreshore gathered beneath a sky filled with stars, enjoying the balmy breeze that whispered across the rippling velvet of the harbor. Connie drove slowly past and found herself smiling, as though the vibrations of the night were somehow infectious.
She was paid up for another week at the vacation house she had rented, so she pulled wearily into the driveway. The car seemed to give a groan of relief, and Connie climbed from behind the wheel, stiff as an old woman. Her eyes were blurred, her mind numbed by the endless hours, and yet she couldn’t help but feel her spirits lift. She stood for a moment, and just let herself be carried by the sense of elation that washed over her. But there was also a trace of fear, like menacing rocks that lurked beneath calm water. This was a new life, and it came with no promises, no guarantees. All she had to carry her along was her dream of her own little gallery.
“Uncertainty is just another word for adventure,” she told herself bravely.
She had an unbidden image then – a vision of Blake McGrath that seemed to swirl in the fog of her weary imagination. And like tendrils of mist, he was impossible to hold; an enigmatic mystery that eddied in her mind, never quite leaving, but never entirely filling out, becoming vivid. All she could remember clearly was the man’s smile.
She was still thinking about him when she curled up in bed and fell into the black death-like sleep of exhaustion.
22.
When the doors to the grocery store opened at 9am the following morning, Connie was waiting on the steps amidst a small group of tourists who had gathered in need of milk and bread or newspapers. She went straight to a pretty young girl behind one of the cash registers and asked to speak to Warren Ryan.
He came to the front of the store after just a few minutes, already looking harried. When he saw Connie there was a spark of instant recognition, followed by a flicker of trepidation in his eyes. His steps faltered, and then he came on with something like grim concern.
“Hello,” he said. “Nice to see you again. Is everything all right?” He had already spent the money Connie had paid for the paintings, clearing up pressing debts with suppliers and placating the banks. Now his features were pale with dread.
“No,” Connie said. She looked up into the man’s face. “I need to speak with you in private. It’s about those paintings.”
Ryan’s shoulders slumped. “Miss, I’m sorry, but we had an –”
Connie cut him off. “Please,” she insisted. “I assure you, what I have to say will only take a minute.”
Ryan trudged down the long aisles like a man on his way to the gallows, and went heavily up the steps to his office with Connie close behind him. She sat across from his desk, and Ryan dropped into his chair. He flicked on the desk lamp and then his eyes seemed to furtively search the room as though looking for a concealed escape.
“When I paid you three thousand dollars for the two paintings I purchased, I did so based on my impressions of their value,” Connie began politely. She was enjoying herself. Behind her reserved demeanor and calm tone was a gleeful delight that she worked hard to suppress. “Well, it turns out that wasn’t the case…”
Ryan bounced up from his chair as though he had been waiting for this moment to launch into his defense. He shook his head, hitched up his sagging trousers, and propped his hands on his hips. “We arrived at a fair price,” the man’s voice rose an octave and became insistent. “You saw the paintings – you… you even made a phone call. I was happy with the agreement and, let me say, you were happy with the agreement also.”
Connie nodded. “But that was before I had an understanding of their fair value,” she smiled sweetly and at last she let the twinkle of pleasure reach her eyes. “That’s why I want to write you a check, Mr. Ryan. For an additional forty thousand dollars.”
Warren Ryan’s mouth fell open in disbelief. Dazedly he dropped down into his chair, and cuffed away tears that misted in his eyes.
23.
The road south along the coast looked very different to Connie as she put the car through a series of bends and sweeping curves. It was midday and the sun flickered through the tops of the pines and dappled the blacktop in shade and light.
She recalled the night of the storm, and passed fallen trees that had been dragged to the gravel shoulder. The memory of that night made her irrationally wary, and despite the perfect weather and the dry road, it was well over an hour of cautious driving before she finally saw the sign-posted turn off to Jellicat Road. Then, quite suddenly, a wave of fear and panic overwhelmed her.
She pulled off the road at the green mailbox and the car jounced along the dirt trail. Connie went only a hundred yards and then had to stop.
Her palms were sweating, and she was shaking like a leaf. She could feel every breath jag anxiously in her throat, and the beat of her heart was an erratic pounding. She got out of the car, surrounded by the dense press of woods, and stood in the still air, forcing herself to breathe, willing her body to relax. Through the long miles and longer days since they had first met, Connie had played out this moment in her imagination time and time again, until it had become so unaccountably significant that it had taken on the weight of a life-changing moment. She shook her head, annoyed.
Blake McGrath was just a man, she told herself.
As a distraction, s
he opened the trunk and drew the briefcase towards her. Slowly, she counted out five hundred dollars, and tucked the roll of bills into her pocket. She concealed the briefcase under a bundle of blankets she had brought from her apartment, and then closed the trunk.
Connie wandered a short way along the trail, hearing the distant percussive rumble of surf along the beach and the songful call of birds high up in the branches. There was a muddy puddle ahead of her and she stepped towards it. The water had shrunken under the baking heat of the sun so she could see a surround of dark wet dirt like an ebbing tide. She peered into the few inches of shallow water, made blue by the reflected sky. For a moment, all she could see were brown lumps of gravel, and then, quite miraculously, she was able to conjure up the image of Blake. He was smiling at her, his mouth in a quirky teasing grin and the corners of his eyes crinkling with pleasure. It was so clear, so vivid in every detail that she blinked, and took a step back. After a moment she peered into the puddle once more and tried to project Duncan’s face, yet when she did, the surface of the puddle seemed rippled so that the pieces of her memory could never quite come together.
Connie got back behind the steering wheel and stared at her own face in the rearview mirror. She could see the nervousness in her reflection, and the smudges of fatigue that hung like soft shadows below her eyes. She practiced her smile, then tried to compose her features into an expression of cool and calm. She dabbed the tip of a finger at her lipstick, and abruptly decided the coral color was too much – too overt. She wiped her lips clean of paint and sighed a regret that she had chosen to wear a shirt and jeans instead of the pretty yellow dress left behind at the rental house. Finally in frustration, she slumped back in the seat, dark and brooding with confusion and turmoil.