“Not regularly. If the police had found one of us, then communication between us could have brought down the others.”
Zander paced. Stopped. Faced Emerson. “Why did you reenter Frank’s life this year?”
“Because Frank is the one who tookYoung Woman at Restby Renoir.”
He glanced at Britt just as she glanced at him. Her brown eyes had gone bright with the satisfaction of discovery.
Britt turned her profile toward Emerson. “That painting hasn’t been seen since the day it was stolen.”
“You believe that Frank still has it,” Zander guessed. “And you want it for yourself.”
A wry dimple marked Emerson’s cheek. “Well? Yes. Frank didn’t seem to have any use for it.”
How dare she find humor in any corner of this? His uncle was dead. “You tracked Frank down. Then what? Threatened him? Blackmailed him?”
She rested one foot over the other again. “I’ve never had the need for brute force. I simply had a few conversations with Frank during which I tried to talk him into letting me sell the painting. I proposed that we’d split the profits fifty-fifty.”
“And he said?”
“No.”
“So you befriended Carolyn, hoping she might lead you to the painting,” Zander said.
Emerson nodded.
“Have you been following me?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you know someone named Nick Dunlap?”
“No.”
He couldn’t decide whether or not she was telling the truth. “The fact that you’ve remained in Merryweather for a month and a half after Frank’s death tells me that the painting is still missing.”
“It’s still missing,” she confirmed.
“I assume that you’ve been searching for it,” Britt said.
“Yes. But so far, I haven’t been able to find it.”
“How can you be sure that Frank didn’t sell it long ago?” Britt asked.
“I’ve spent my entire professional life doing business with a certain group of people. If Frank had sold it, I’d have known.”
A timer let out a beeping sound, and Emerson disappeared into the kitchen, he supposed to take her pie from the oven. He heard the whoosh of a drawer.
He jumped up and flicked open her day planner to the week she had bookmarked, this week. The hinge on the oven door rasped. He memorized the notations on the pages as quickly and accurately as he could. The oven door rasped again.
He landed back in his chair. Britt gave him a look that communicated her approval the second before Emerson strode in.
“How did Frank die?” he asked when Emerson returned to her position at the fireplace. The smell of pumpkin, which he’d always liked in the past, became suffocating.
“I don’t know.”
“We’re aware that Frank received an upsetting phone call his final day at work,” Britt said.
“He got in his car and drove off,” Zander said. “And that was the last anyone saw of him before he was found dead in his car the next day. Are you the person who called him at work?”
