The Last Word (14 page)

Hudson was as taciturn as always. He took the key from Olivia with mumbled thanks and then told her he was sorry to be missing the staff meeting at The Bayside Crab House.

“You don’t need to be there. You’ve got everyone trained perfectly and this isn’t my first rodeo, Olivia assured him. After all, she was well accustomed to giving orders to the staff and supervising their practice runs. For the soft opening tonight, a motley assembly of diners had been hand-selected to test the wait and kitchen staff. Dixie and her husband were among them, and Olivia had made special arrangements with her friend. In other words, she’d asked Dixie to be curt, picky, and demanding.

“Test their mettle,” Olivia had told her bemused friend over the phone. “Request extra lemon wedges and butter sauce and send back a dish because it doesn’t taste right. Spill your wine and complain about spots on the flatware. I want to know that they can handle belligerent customers.”

Dixie had been delighted by both the assignment and the chance to share a free seafood feast with Grumpy. “If you really want to see what your employees are made of, let me bring my kids. You’ll get yourself a pack of fussy eaters, a whole lotta extra noise, and crab claws a-flyin’ every which way. Your poor waiter might just quit before dessert.”

“I love the idea, Dixie. Most of the tourists will have families in tow, and some of them may very well be boisterous or superfinicky.” Olivia had grinned. “Tell your brood to let loose.”

“You do
not
know what you’re sayin’, ’Livia, but for the record, I’m not responsible for the dischargin’ of fire extinguishers or any structural damage,” Dixie had stated seriously before hanging up.

Now, standing in the hospital’s lobby, Olivia tried to convince her brother to forget about the restaurant and focus on his family, but no matter what she said, he refused to take a week off to be with his wife and daughter. She knew fear kept him from making the right decision. Not only did Hudson fear his newborn son’s fragility, but he was clearly terrified that the restaurant would fail and he’d have moved his family to Oyster Bay for nothing. And though Olivia understood both fears, she still chastised him for putting his job ahead of his family. He stood firm though.

Eventually, he did accept the key card but made no move to return to his wife’s room. “I know what I’m doing in the kitchen,” he muttered miserably. “I belong there.”

An image of Anders’ little face, his translucent skin covering the rivers of blue veins carrying fresh blood from his newly stitched heart flashed through Olivia’s mind. She narrowed her eyes in anger. “You
belong
with your son. And with your wife. It’s probably killing her that she can’t be at that baby’s side. You might not know how to handle this, but you’re going to figure it out. You’re a father to two children, so start acting like one.” Her tone allowed no argument. She handed him a slip of paper. “That’s the combination to the hotel room’s wall safe. If Kim and Caitlyn are going to live there for the next two weeks, I want them to be comfortable.” Her brother looked so terrified that she relented a little and gave his thick shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “I’ll see you tomorrow,
after
you get back from driving your family to their temporary home.”

Nodding in compliance, Hudson grabbed her hand and clung to it for a moment before walking away.

Olivia watched him go, imagining how tomorrow morning would pass for the Salters. Kim would be taken by wheelchair to the hospital’s front door. She’d climb out of the chair, the pain in her belly from her cesarean forcing her to cringe, and get into Hudson’s car. She’d sit in the back, holding her daughter and comforting her as she and Hudson spoke of the future. Kim would try to keep everyone’s spirits up while silently noting the passing of every mile marker, her hands clenched in impatience as the distance closed between her and her tiny son.

“Enough with the maudlin imagery,” Olivia chided herself, got back in the Range Rover, and headed for the office park east of town.

Harris worked in a three-story concrete box that was completely unremarkable except for the Yoda replica in the lobby. The green-skinned, elfin-eared Jedi rested on a podium in the middle of a fountain surrounded by tropical plants. He welcomed visitors with a wise and wrinkled gaze and a plaque bearing the company logo.

Olivia glanced at the statue in puzzlement and then turned her attention to the young receptionist who was jotting a message onto a pink memo pad. She recognized the girl’s pretty face immediately.

“Hi, Estelle.”

Estelle beamed as though the very sight of Olivia had made her day. “How
nice
to see you here! And your cute doggie came too! Are you visiting Harris?” Her words tumbled forth rapid-fire, every syllable infused with a shrill energy. Before Olivia could answer, the phone sitting directly in front of Estelle began to ring and she answered it with a lengthy, well-rehearsed greeting. She filled out another sheet on the pink memo pad and then, as the caller continued talking, her hand drifted to a massive desk calendar, where she idly drew a series of small hearts around Harris’s name.

Finally, she said good-bye and replaced the receiver. She was about to speak to Olivia when the phone rang again. Estelle held out her index finger, signaling for Olivia to wait until she finished with her next caller.

“Could you just tell me where to find Harris? It’s important,” Olivia said, placing her hand on the edge of Estelle’s desk. The phone continued to ring.

Something ugly flickered in the young woman’s eyes, but she blinked it away and pasted on a bright smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll call him for you. But I’ve got to answer this first.”

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she repeated the extensive greeting she’d used on the previous caller, her pen poised over the memo pad.

Annoyed, Olivia covertly examined Estelle’s calendar. To her surprise, she saw that Estelle had added Harris’s last name to her own and had practiced the signature over and over in the margin. Wedding bells and tiered cakes danced along any available white space, and plump hearts were scattered about.

This evidence of Estelle’s vision of her future with Harris didn’t please Olivia at all. Harris would make a wonderful husband someday, but Olivia didn’t think that Estelle was a suitable life partner for her friend. In her mind, Estelle was merely one of the girls Harris would date to discover exactly what he was looking for in a spouse. Estelle was pretty, sweet, and bubbly, but she was about as deep as a puddle.

She was practice for the real thing.

And then there was Millay. The tension had been escalating between Harris and Millay ever since Estelle had entered the picture, and Olivia knew that it stemmed from the fact that the two young writers were attracted to each other. Millay had dated dozens of men, from bikers to stockbrokers, but she’d never stayed with anyone long enough to form a genuine relationship. Though Millay had an undeniable connection with Harris, Olivia knew that Harris hadn’t ripened into the man he needed to be in order to capture the beautiful bartender’s heart. He was getting closer, but he wasn’t quite there. He needed another dose of confidence, a dash of bravado, and a bit more worldly experience before he had the necessary ingredients to woo his fellow writer.

Olivia was positive that Harris was precisely what the fearless bartender needed: someone to challenge her on a mental level, treat her tenderly, and win her respect not by possessing a muscular physique or fat bank account, but with a sharp wit and ready humor.

“I’ll ring Harris’s extension now, but I’m not sure what the company policy is about having dogs in the building,” Estelle said, a jester’s practiced smile stretched across her face. “And what can I tell him this is about?”

“It’s personal,” Olivia said flatly. “And you have my word that Haviland won’t soil the carpet.”

Again, that flicker of hostility appeared in the young woman’s eyes, but she looked down at the phone and pressed some keys with manicured nails. She baby-talked into the receiver until Olivia had to step back lest Estelle see the disgusted curl of her lip.

Harris jogged into the lobby less than a minute later. “This is so cool!” He exclaimed to Olivia. “I’ve never had a friend visit me at work before!” He scratched Haviland on the head and then noticed the canvas tote bag. “Whoa. Is that the painting?”

Olivia nodded. “Can we go sit somewhere? An empty conference room or staff lounge?”

“Sure.” Harris waved at Estelle. “Thanks for paging me.”

“Anytime, sweetie,” she cooed. “And I won’t tell anyone that you’ve got a dog back there with you.” She drew a finger across her lips to seal in the secret.

Flushing, Harris led Olivia through a warren of hallways. He poked his head in a small conference room and signaled for Olivia to enter. “This one has food left from the bigwig’s lunch meeting. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” He gestured at a sandwich platter flanked by a bowl of red apples and a row of soda cans and snack-sized bags of potato chips. “It doesn’t look like much, but this is the best chicken salad you’ll ever eat.”

Olivia raised her brows. “You do recall that I own a five-star restaurant?”

“I
know
!” Harris enthused. “That’s how good it is.” He loaded two sandwiches, an apple, and a bag of Fritos onto his plate.

Olivia carefully laid the tote bag on the conference table and then idly chewed on an apple as Harris devoured his lunch. They small-talked about their writing and Harris’s current software project until he finally pushed his plate away.

“It was totally nice of you to bring this here,” he said. “But it wasn’t necessary.”

Exhaling, Olivia touched the canvas bag. “There’s a reason I came to your office. Harris, this painting may be more important than any of us can comprehend. In fact, it may figure into a murder investigation.”

Harris blanched.
“What?”

Gently, for she knew that her young friend idolized Nick Plumley, Olivia told him that the writer had been killed that morning.

“How?
Why?
” Harris stammered, clearly shaken.

After admitting that she didn’t know the reason, Olivia hesitated and then softly explained that Plumley had been strangled.

“Harris, this is going to sound strange, but did Nick poke around your house the day you two were painting the living room?” Seeing the confused look on her friend’s face, she went on. “Was he especially interested in loose floorboards or in seeing the attic? Did he ask if you’d discovered any hidey-holes?”

Harris’s eyes widened. “Yeah, he did. He was telling me about this old house north of Beaufort he’d visited a bunch of times. It had a hidden space behind a wallboard in one of the closets and a niche carved from an exposed beam in the kitchen. Nick asked if I’d found any secret hiding places in my house, but I told him I doubted there were any.” He shook his head in befuddlement. “It’s not that old of a building. And except for being moved a few decades ago, it wasn’t important, historically speaking.”

“But what if it wasn’t the house that captured Nick’s interest?” Olivia wondered aloud. “What if he wanted to find
this
painting all along? Maybe the message on the back indicates that there’s more to Heinrich Kamler’s story. What if Nick believed he could track Kamler through this painting? Could you imagine the book he could write?”

Harris touched the canvas tote bag possessively. “Why didn’t Nick just ask me? I would have fessed up that I hadn’t found anything but would gladly show him if I did.” A hurt look crossed his features. “He never cared about my manuscript, did he? I bet he never read it.”

“That’s his loss, Harris.” Olivia gave her friend a fond smile. “If it’s any consolation, I believe he genuinely liked you and would have helped you with your writing, but for some reason, he wanted to keep the knowledge of this painting to himself.”

This notion seemed to trouble Harris. “What makes you say that?”

“When I called him this morning and told him about the painting’s existence, I could practically feel his desire to see it surge through the phone line. The emotion was so strong that I could picture a pair of hands reaching out to me.” She shook her head at the theatrical depiction. “Okay, that’s a bit much, but it meant a great deal to him.”

Crushing the remaining Frito on his plate into corn-colored bits, Harris’s expression grew thoughtful. “If you hadn’t just told me that Nick was dead, I’d assume the watercolor was important to his research and that he wanted to use it as a plot device in his sequel. But now . . .”

“Now?” Olivia prodded.

Harris pushed the bag toward her. “You’d better keep this. It would be safer at your restaurant or in a bank vault or something. Give it to the cops. Don’t even tell me where you put it, just take it away.”

It was unlike Harris to be dramatic, and Olivia frowned, but she’d just told him that his potential mentor had been murdered and he had every right to be upset. “All right, I’ll see to it.”

“Listen, Olivia. The killer stuffed Nick’s own book pages into his mouth. That means not only is it likely that some homicidal maniac had cause to hate
The Barbed Wire Flower
, but also didn’t want Nick to write the sequel.” Harris’s face was pink with anxiety. “This painting might be a pivotal part of the book Nick planned, so it might be important to his murderer too.”

Nodding, Olivia fed Haviland a few hunks of chicken. “I’ve been concerned about the same thing, but we could be blowing this out of proportion. We have no facts as of this point, and we need to gather some quickly.”

Harris opened a can of Fanta and drank a swallow. “Yeah, because I don’t want any of us to end up with pages of manuscripts crammed down
our
throats.” He ran his hands through his ginger-colored hair. “We need to figure out why Nick’s research set the killer off. If we don’t,
I
could be the next victim. This lunatic might come to my place in search of the painting or whatever connection Nick thought my house had to his story.”