Page 55 of The Misfits of Copper County
At first, all I could see was what the others had seen—bare wood, dust, and scraps of yellowed newspaper. But as my eyes adjusted, I saw that at the back of the visible space, there appeared to be a set of shelves holding several flat parcels.
“Oh my gosh. What are those?” I demanded, pointing.
“If I knew, it wouldn’t be a mystery, would it?” Brewer shrugged. “I didn’t want to look any further without you.”
I turned to face him. “That might just be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Brewer,” I said seriously.
He snorted. “Yeah, well. I swear to Christ, whatever they are better not lead us on some Nicolas Cage treasure hunt?—”
“Aw, Brewer.” I looked up at him with a lazy smile. “If Janice could hear you now, she’d be crushed.”
Brewer’s grin hit fast and crooked, like he hadn’t meant to let it loose, and the air between us tightened, humming with something that felt a lot like inevitability?—
Or maybe not so inevitable since a second later, Brewer stepped back.
“We should… get to work widening the opening,” he told the floor. “Take off the rest of the plaster in this section so you can see what’s in there.”
I folded my arms over my chest and nodded. “Weren’t we going to have to do that anyway? I mean, we uncovered a jam cupboard. We can’t just cover it up again.”
Brewer darted a look at me, his lips tilting up in that hooked smile. “Well, we could. Jam cupboard’s just another word for a plain, old pantry, so if you’d rather have counter space than storage?—”
“Bup bup bup.Did you just insult my jam cupboard by calling it a pantry?” I demanded. “My vintage, hidden, ye oldey-fashionedey jam cupboard?”
He shook his head, still smiling. “Right. I’ll grab my tools.”
“The sledgehammer?” I asked hopefully.
“Not unless you feel the need to hit things again,” he called, already heading for the garage.
Frankly, when Brewer had refused to look at me, I’d felt very much like hitting something.
But when he came back with a pry bar, he also handed me a pair of work gloves and showed me how to remove sections of the plaster without damaging whatever might be behind it, which was almost—but not quite—as good.
Our hands brushed occasionally, sending jolts of awareness through me that I tried desperately to ignore. After about twenty minutes, the opening was wide enough for me to step inside.
“Wow,” I said when I did. Brewer was partly correct—the space we unearthed was basically a dusty closet paneled in rough wood and with shelves hung at regular intervals along one side, but it was not a “plain old” anything. The space smelled like cedar chips, and on the shelves sat at least a dozen stacked rectangular packages wrapped in butcher paper. Scrolls of tightly wrapped papers stood in one corner, too.
I gently pulled the top package off the stack, brought it out to the kitchen, and set it on the floor to open it.
“Is that…?” Brewer’s voice trailed off.
“A painting,” I finished, turning it toward the light.
The unframed canvas was small—maybe eight by ten inches—but exquisitely detailed. It was a landscape of Copper Lake in the fall, when the maple and oak trees were lit up in crimson, amber, and gold. At the water’s edge, a woman stood in profile, gazing out over the water with a secret smile on her face. A long-forgotten breeze caught at her burgundy dress and sent strands of dark hair curling like ribbons toward the water.
“E. Winters,” Brewer read. “1977.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Grab another.”
The second canvas showed a different view of the lake. In this one, it was clearly winter since all the trees were bare, and early morning light bathed everything in a crystalline glow. In the background, the Observatory House—the Copper County landmark where Theo and Bennett lived—was in the early stages of construction, with scaffolding visible on one side. In the foreground, the same dark-haired woman, this time in a navy blue coat, stood with her back toward the artist, one red-gloved hand shielding her eyes as she looked toward the rising sun.
All in all, there were more than a dozen paintings, most of the lake or the woods surrounding it. All of them were signed E. Winters and dated from 1970 to 1983. All of them featured the same woman.
“Who is the woman in the pictures?” I wondered.
“And who’s E. Winters?” Brewer asked. “And why were they hidden away?”
Our shoulders nearly touched as Brewer crouched beside me on the plywood floor and we leaned over the paintings. The bergamot-and-Brewer scent was more powerful than ever, but I fought the Pavlovian Dick Response with all my might.
