As they crossed Union, she could see the drizzle glistening on her companion's dark hair. His eyes were an unusually deep, earthy shade of green. She hadn't really noticed yesterday. He pulled open the door to the coffee shop, and she ducked in ahead of him, welcoming the warmth, the smell of coffee and sweets, the chatter and laughter of the crowd.
Garvin offered to get their order while she slid off toward the back of the shop to find a table. She settled into a wooden chair at a two-person round table amidst bookcases, brass lamps, wood-paneled walls with old photographs. The shop resembled a Victorian library, and it was packed with people of every age in every manner of dress. Annie watched Garvin MacCrae weave through people and tables with his tray. He was a good-looking man, at ease, it seemed, wherever he found himself. But she sensed that he was a man with a mission, and she doubted that an item in a local gossip column was sufficient reason for him to have tracked her down.
He set the tray on the small table and lifted off her frothy cappuccino and chocolate-dipped biscotti and sat down with a black coffee for himself. "You're new in town, aren't you?" he asked.
Annie nodded. "I'm from Maine. I came out here in November and opened my gallery just before Christmas."
He studied her with a disturbing, penetrating intensity. "Why San Francisco?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time. I'd visited twice before and liked it, and I had this fantasy of opening my own gallery. Then my cottage was swept out to sea in a storm. I'd lived there my whole life. My father died when I was a baby, and for a long time it was just my mother, grandmother, and me. Then my mother died when I was sixteen, and Gran died the summer before last." Annie used a tiny spoon to skim cinnamon-sprinkled foam off her cappuccino. "So when my cottage was lost, it seemed like an opportune moment to leave."
"Any regrets?"
"No, not really. I love Maine—it's home. But I'm enjoying San Francisco, and I love running a gallery. I thought about opening one in Maine, but I don't know if I could have brought myself to quit my job there. I was director of a small maritime museum. It's hard to give up that kind of security. But if I headed west"—she shrugged—"then I'd have no choice."
Garvin settled back in his chair, but Annie had no illusions that he wasn't watching, listening to everything. "How does the painting you bought yesterday fit in with your gallery?"
"I'm not sure," she said quickly, hoping she didn't look as if she'd been caught unaware.
"It just struck your fancy and you paid five thousand dollars for it?"
His tone was nonconfrontational, without even a hint of disbelief or sarcasm. Very slick, Annie thought. But she wasn't fooled. Garvin MacCrae no more believed she'd bought that painting for her gallery than the man in her workroom a half hour ago did. She tried her cappuccino. "Pretty much."
He opened his mouth, then shut it again and drank some of his coffee. Finally, he said, "When you're ready, I'd appreciate it if you would tell me exactly what this man who hid in your workroom said to you."
Annie dipped her biscotti into her cappuccino and bit off the end, welcoming the rush of sugar and chocolate. She could feel Garvin's eyes on her. In spite of his patient words, he looked cold, hard, tight, as if he were steeling himself against giving a damn about anything she might say or do. Yet he was having a curious effect on her. With the sleeves of his sweater pushed up, she could see the cords of muscles in his tanned forearms and found herself wondering what he did for a living, who he was, how he'd ended up married to a Linwood. She caught herself looking at the calluses on his hands—she hadn't noticed them yesterday—and suddenly imagining ihcm on her. She lore her gaze away, her iaee hot.
As succinctly and accurately as she could, she related her encounter with the man in her workroom. She admitted nothing more about Sarah Linwood and the painting than she'd admitted to the gray-haired man.
"This Vic Denardo," she said finally. "If he's the police's chief suspect, why hasn't he been arrested?"
Garvin sat forward. "He disappeared after the murders."
Blood pounded in Annie's ears. Vic Denardo had disappeared too? "I had no idea. None of this—I just didn't know." She drank more of her cappuccino, willing herself not to blurt out everything about Sarah. She'd made a promise, and she meant to keep it until and unless she had no choice. "Why would he risk being recognized just because he thinks I can lead him to Sarah Linwood?"
"I don't know. I can only speculate. Annie, is he right? Can you lead him to Sarah?" Garvin's voice was deep, persuasive, undemanding. "Did she get you to buy that painting for her?"