Page 36 of Just Beachy

Her chin juts out. For a moment I think she’s going to lie right to my face. In the end she says, “Yes.”

We lock gazes and I remember her reaction to seeing Phillip Drake’s face on the TV screen at Covington Arms when his death was first announced. And how soon afterward the break-ins began.

“It has something to do with Phillip Drake and hisMissing Madonna, doesn’t it?”

She doesn’t comment but something in her eyes confirms it.

“Did you steal it when you left New York because of how he hurt you?” I ask quietly. “Are you the person who made it go missing?”

Grand sighs. She drops her gaze briefly. But then her chin goes up and she locks gazes with me again.

“No,” she says so quietly, I have to strain to hear.

“No,” she says more firmly. “When I left New York, what I took with me was the self-portrait that I had painted.”

She folds her hands on the table in front of her, and I suspect she’s trying to keep them from shaking. “Days later, he circulated photos of my painting and officially claimed it as his own work. Then, when he’d grabbed the spotlight and the art world’s full attention, he announced that it had been stolen. In one fell swoop, he climbed a mountain it would have taken years to scale.”

Grand draws another breath and squares her shoulders. Her voice vibrates with a mixture of anger and sadness. “He keptThe Missing Madonnain and out of the headlinesfor over sixty years. As a result, he became a household name and his other works commanded ridiculously high prices.Mypainting made him and his family extremely wealthy. Ultimately, Phillip Drake became famous for a work that was not his, and his name will always be associated with something that I painted yet can never claim.”

“Do you think it’s his family that’s behind the attempts to steal your self-portrait?”

“It could be. Or it could be his longtime agent. Who still gets a commission on every work of his that sells. Or even a gallery owner who sells his work regularly and wants the money train to keep on going.”

“Wow.” I say the only thing that pops into my head.

“What I don’t know,” Grand almost whispers, “is whether they’re trying to steal it to make sure myMadonnanever sees the light of day. Or so that they can control the timing of its ‘discovery’ in hopes of sending its value even further through the roof.”

Eighteen

The next evening at exactly6:00 p.m., Grand’s doorbell rings.

“Are we expecting someone?” I call into the kitchen, where Grand seems to be cooking up a storm.

When she doesn’t respond, I pound down the stairs and pull open the front door. Luke is standing on the front step with a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

“What are you doing here?”

“Your grandmother invited me for dinner.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“Grand?” I yell up the stairs. “Someone’s here to see you!”

“Bring him on up!” Grand shouts down, now apparently able to hear.

I stomp up the stairs with Luke behind me. When we get to the kitchen, I look at the two of them. “What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to thank Luke for all his help,” Grand says innocently. I’ve known her since birth, but I’m still shocked by how completely innocent she can seem while she’s telling a lie.

“And yet you never mentioned it.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” she says as she fills a vase with water, arranges the flowers in it, then positions the arrangement in the middle of the dining table, which is already set for three.

“And you did,” I concede. Just not necessarily in a good way. Partly because hecanbe annoying. But mostly because even a five-minute warning would have allowed me to put on something more attractive than the cutoff jeans and off-the-shoulder midriff top I’m wearing.

Grand, of course, is wearing an especially attractive palazzo pants outfit with an equally beautiful apron tied at her waist. A green salad sits in front of each dinner plate. A large platter of paella and a wooden board with what appears to be a loaf of warm Cuban bread are sitting on either side of the floral arrangement, which now serves as our centerpiece. A serious-looking bread knife sits next to the crusty loaf of bread while pitchers of water and sangria have been placed within easy reach.

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