Margot looked to Sassy expectantly.
Sassy took a bracing breath before she forced a smile and nodded. “Count me in.”
“It’s settled then,” Margot said, bringing her hands together and beaming at both of them. “Before you go, Sassy, I have something I wanted you to see.”
“Oh?” Sassy followed her to the small storage closet attached to the room. Margot rummaged around for a moment before revealing an item wrapped in a vibrant silk scarf.
Margot held it as if it might shatter, handing it carefully to Sassy. “I thought you might consider it for tonight’s auction.”
Intrigued, Sassy unwrapped the scarf from around it, recognizing the shape and weight of a canvas. When the silk slid away, she froze.
The painting was small—a simple eight-by-ten. The subject stood in the center of a vast, empty red-sand desert, facing the wind. Her hair and ceremonial dress billowed out behind her. Little by little, her sleek black mane and skirt were being carried off by the breath of air in the form of scarlet petals.
Sassy found her own initials scrawled across the bottom corner.
Margot’s voice dropped to a murmur. “It was a gift you gave me for Mother’s Day after…after Lincoln died.”
Sassy raised her gaze to Margot’s and found her eyes swimming every bit as much as Sassy feared hers were. “I remember,” she said hoarsely.
Margot nodded. “It meant the world to me.”
“Then why are you giving it back?” Sassy asked.
“Because others should see it,” Margot told her. “I’ve selfishly held on to it all these years, even though I knew it belonged to the world.”
“I painted this for you.” The woman in the painting was Margot against the world. Against the odds. Fate might try to break her down, but she stood tall regardless. “It’s yours.”
When Sassy tried to transfer it back to Margot’s arms, the woman closed Sassy’s fingers around the edges. “I want you to hang it in your gallery. I want you to tell people that you made this. This is your work. No one else’s. You don’t have to sell it to the highest bidder. But it should be known. It should be seen. It’s worthy of that, and so are you.”
Words of gratitude were locked tight in Sassy’s throat. She struggled against tears as she wrapped her arms around the canvas, hugged it to her chest and nodded. Stepping forward, she touched her lips to Margot’s cheek.
Margot ran a hand over her braid in answer. “Take something for yourselves tonight. Both of you. Promise me?”
Sassy nodded, still unable to speak.
Nick’s whisper touched her ear, making her skin tingle. “Should we pinkie swear on it?”
A breathless laugh escaped her. Unable to turn toward him with her emotions rippling across the surface like this, she gave her answer. “Yes.”
* * *
Zephyr Gallery practically glittered. Between flutes of gold champagne, shimmering gowns and the Chihuly-inspired chandelier consisting of hundreds of translucent spiral glass horns, the Colton Foundation fundraiser was proving to be the classiest event on Dark Canyon’s social calendar. The chandelier was one of many pieces up for grabs tonight. Its starting bid was the highest on the auction floor.
Nick watched the bidders file in. Tension sank into his body slowly but surely as a crowd packed the space. Catering attendants circulated, passing out drinks and tiny bites of stuffed mushroom or smoked salmon. From his position on the floating stairs, he could track each person. He could also see the closed door to the storeroom.
He clocked Ryder the moment he entered the space, dressed in a bespoke three-piece suit. Cuff links flashed at his wrists. He wore a diamond stud in his left ear.
Everything about the man was a lie. According to his dossier, he had no other employment outside of his fledgling metalworks business. Not officially. Sassy’s theory that his family supported his artistic ambitions hadn’t panned out. He had no family to speak of. He wouldn’t, living under an alias as he was.
The detective he’d worked with at DCPD had used his resources to try to uncover Ryder’s real identity. Whoever he’d paid to help him change his name had been skillful. Nick was no closer to finding out who he really was or what he was hiding.
Soledad, decked out in a shining strapless silver number, met Ryder halfway across the gallery floor, offering him a glass of bubbly and an auction catalog. As he wrapped his fingers over hers on the stem, he used it to pull her closer and lay his lips over hers.
Nick raised a brow.Bold move for a shy guy, he noted. Ryder hadn’t exactly appeared comfortable with public displays of affection at the Bootleg. What was rallying his confidence tonight?
A face from the crowd tilted up toward his. The detective, Rick Finbar, from the local PD, acknowledging Ryder’s entrance. Nick gave him a slight nod. He sought another form belonging to the executive of the security firm, Todd Olsen, who had brought his art-loving wife, Kelly, to the event. His windswept hair hid an earpiece that allowed him to communicate with the guys in the security van outside, monitoring the scene with cameras they’d hidden during the installation of the new security system.
If Ryder made a move toward the storeroom, they would alert Olsen, who would cue Detective Finbar and his team.
