As she looked over, she saw two little children. She smiled because the little imps were going into the installation too, and that would be a challenge. But a fun one. They would be painted to represent beach balls, lively jitterbug balls. Their childish energy already zoomed around them with excitement. That also meant Cayce needed to do them last. And she’d have to paint them fast, as she didn’t imagine their attention span would last very long. And they were earlier than she’d have liked.
She took her satchel to the side, setting out her paints, and heard Naomi in the background, still screeching.
“You can start anytime,” Naomi said.
“Get a coffee and relax,” she ordered her model.
Naomi glared at her, her feet tapping the floor, her hands on her hips.
Deliberately Cayce turned. She was supposed to be the temperamental artist, but it seemed like all she did was deal with temperamental models. Another reason Elena had been absolutely perfect.
Not only had she got it, but she really got it. She’d been quiet, unassuming, and she blended into the pieces as she was intended to do, whereas Naomi was desperate to stand out, and she wanted the art to revolve around her. She didn’t understand she was just a tiny piece of it. And, if she did understand, she’d never accept it because, of course, in her world, there couldn’t be anything but her.
Finally Cayce was ready. She grabbed her small cup, put it atop her palette, grabbed her brushes, and motioned at Naomi. “Bottom first.”
Naomi sighed, slipped off the beach cover-up she had on, revealing a nude pair of panties. She still had a sports bra on top, which would be fine until Cayce got to the upper half of her body. Naomi stepped forward, tossed her hair back, and said, “I hope I don’t have to put up my hair yet.”
“Nope, you don’t,” Cayce said, and, reaching for the paintbrush, dipped it in the paint, and made the first of many long strokes to come.
*
Richard opened his email, saw the one from Anita, immediately clicked on it, and printed off the invoices. When he picked up those pages from the printer, he added them to the file, and, as he did so, he sat down to study the summary on top.
“Something interesting?” Andy asked, as he plopped a heavy mug of coffee on his desk and threw himself into the chair beside Richard.
“Not likely,” he said, “just the invoice of who paid for the last installation where Elena had been.”
“Right,” he said. “We still have to cross the Ts and dot the Is.”
“Always.” He picked up the phone and contacted the number on the other end. When it rang, it went to voicemail, but no company was identified. He figured a lot of the wealthy art patrons around the city didn’t necessarily order these installations directly, and it mostly would be under company names, but Richard couldn’t be sure. He quickly left a message, hung up, and then brought up the company name on his desktop, only to find absolutely no information about it. He sat back in his chair, thrumming his fingers on the desk. “So the company doesn’t come up on Google.”
“What’s the name?”
“John Hallmark,” he said with a tilt to his head. “Interesting business name.”
“Probably thinks of himself as an artist. It’s likely another one of those artsy niche boutique companies,” he said.
“That could be. Did you have any luck getting ahold of the remaining three people in the will?”
“Some, but one more is dead,” he said.
Richard slipped his head around the corner of the monitor. “Seriously?”
“Yes, but that person died quite a few years ago,” he said.
“And does the lawyer have a more up-to-date will?”
“The lawyer is not returning our phone calls,” Andy said in a dry tone.
At that, Richard’s growl was thunderous. “Well, in that case, we need to have a little visit.”
“I’m always up for rattling lawyers,” Andy said with a laugh, “but this guy appears to be out of the country.”
“Well, somebody must be left behind.”
“Small outfit, small firm, just him. Answering service that handles several businesses.”
“A new lawyer?”
“No, I think the opposite,” he said. “An old one.”
“Great. We’ll send him a message that we need to speak.”
“I did a while ago. Let me check in case he wrote back.” Tapping the keys as he signed onto his computer, he said, “Sweet, there’s a response,” Andy said. “Let’s see what he has to say.” A few more clicks. “He says he can do a phone call later this afternoon,” Andy said, tapping his email on his desktop. “That just came in about two minutes ago.”
“Good. We need to resolve that issue to make sure we’ve got a current will, and we need to know who these other two people are.”
“I know.”
“Any connection between the three dead ones?”
“Yes, they all died a while ago,” he said. “But the two who died in the car accident together were deemed an accident. Drunk driver hit them. He’s been convicted and long gone.”
“Okay, so that wasn’t anything suspicious. What about the other one?”
“Breast cancer.”
Richard let out a slow breath. “You’re killing off all our possible suspects.”
“I know,” he said. “I don’t think it’s anything to do with the will, but I could be wrong. Apparently a ton of money is there.”
“Well, now two are left who stand to inherit a hell of a lot more.”
“And, if those two aren’t around, then somebody else stands to inherit an even bigger portion.” Andy paused. “Do we have anything that suggests there’s more to the relationship between Elena and Cayce?”
“Not that I’ve found,” Richard said, “but I didn’t ask her specifically.” He reached for his phone and called Cayce’s gallery. When Anita answered, he said, “This is
