Jeanne read back from the message pad. “‘Cam, cal your older sister.’”
Smal tendrils of smoke curled out of Anastasia’s ears, or maybe it was just the coffeemaker. She picked up Jeanne’s bowl of pink paper clips and reared back.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Stacy.” Cam crawled out of the kneehole and dusted herself off. “Get over yourself.”
“You heard al that?”
“Squirrel Hil heard al that.”
“You have a lot of nerve.”
Cam mimed an introduction. “Pot. Kettle. Kettle. Pot. By the way, Bal loved the new wing.”
Anastasia drew herself up into ful Hydra horror. “You don’t own Bal !”
“Wel , it’s not like I need the warning. You slept with my first boyfriend. You slept with my second boyfriend and told me he was gay. You stole my major in col ege, and now you’re working at my museum. I’d offer you an apology, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to take it whether I give it to you or not.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Campbel . Man up.”
“Yes, clearly I ought to keep a pretty deep inventory.”
Anastasia gave a howl of frustration, reared back again and threw the bowl, but not before half a dozen paper clips tumbled down her arm and attached to her bracelet. The bowl smashed into a dozen pieces, and Anastasia shook her arm like two attack dogs were hanging there. When the pink wire didn’t release, she stormed out.
“Wow,” Jeanne said. “It must have been a red-letter day for you when Anastasia left the house to start kindergarten.”
“Why does she have to be so mean? You know, I remember it kil ing me when she ignored me in high school.
Who’d have thought I’d look back on those days so fondly?”
She plopped in her chair and returned to the computer.
There, on her monitor, the manuscript she’d been kicking around for two months looked out at her. Sex it up, eh? She supposed there were a few ways to do that. She could add sex. Lord knows there was enough of that in the art world even then, and she knew Van Dyck had had a long affair with a woman named Margaret Lemon. She could add a competitive rivalry, going for the Shaquil e O’Neal/Kobe Bryant sort of thing. Even better, though, would be a competitive rivalry over a woman.
Hmmmm.
Cam scanned her memory banks. Surely there had been some woman somewhere who’d been shared by Van Dyck and another artist. Unfortunately most of Cam’s research had been about the man and his work. Sure, there had been the various bits of information about his life, but Cam had used that to flesh out the story of his painting. The sources she’d found had been somewhat dry regurgitations of where he studied and how he progressed to being the chosen painter of Charles I. If she was going to sex this puppy up, she needed something else. She was just starting to clear a path to her keyboard when her cel phone rang. She dug it out of her purse and checked the display. It was Joe. She hit the answer button. “How’s my favorite sibling?”
“Gee, I’d feel more flattered if I didn’t know my only competition was Stacy.”
“That’s Anastasia to you, pal.”
“You guys stil going strong?”
“You know I can’t get enough. What are you up to?” she asked lightly.
Joe had lost his wife and son in a car accident ten months earlier. It would be a long time before she’d feel him living inside their conversations again.
“You know. Same old. I just wanted to tel you I’m making my reservations for Christmas—”
“Oh, you’re coming up!” she cried happily, and instantly regretted it. The accident had happened shortly after the regretted it. The accident had happened shortly after the holidays.
“Yeah, I want to
