Otto lunged forward, eager to get inside. But Annie held him back, although he could have dragged her in if he'd wanted to. "You don't seem in the mood for company."
"I'm not." But she sighed, her expression softening. "It's very sweet of you to fret about me, Annie. I'm afraid I've become an old crank. I'm not used to having anyone worry about me, and I haven't had anyone to worry about in—well, a long time."
At least five years. According to the papers, she and her niece had been close. And there'd been her father. Like him or not, Sarah Linwood had tended to his needs longer than should have been required of any daughter. And, of course, there'd been Vic Denardo, but Annie had yet to sort out Sarah's relationship with him.
"Perhaps I can make you a cup of tea," Annie offered quietly.
"I can make my own tea."
No hint of blue-blooded breeding this afternoon. Gritting her teeth, Annie followed the old crab into her house. "If you're too tired, I can come back tomorrow."
"I'm fine. A glass of water and some crackers will revive me."
"Otto can stay outside—"
"No, let him in. He won't hurt anything."
Annie wasn't worried about him knocking Sarah over; Gran had straightened him out on that score as a puppy. She just didn't want him shredding, slobbering on, or otherwise mucking up any of Sarah's canvases. "Really, it's no problem if—"
"Annie. Please. He won't hurt me. He won't hurt my paintings. Come inside."
It occurred to Annie that Sarah could have some justification for losing patience with her. Holding Otto short on his leash, she went inside. She discouraged her eager dog from sniffing around to familiarize himself with the territory until Sarah barked at her to let the poor animal off his leash.
Annie complied. Go ahead, Otto. Lift your leg on one of her still lifes and see how she likes it.
But Otto, obviously in a traitorous mood, immediately plopped down in the middle of Sarah's kitchen floor as if he were back in Maine.
Sarah got her glass of water and handful of saltines, standing at the sink while she ate and drank without comment. Finally, she took a sleeve of crackers and hobbled on her cane back toward her rattan chair with the chintz cushions. Annie remained close to the front door and kept an eye on Otto, just in case he got any ideas.
"I suppose," Sarah said, sinking painfully onto her chair, "you're wondering where I've been."
"You don't owe me an explanation."
She might as well have not spoken. Sarah showed no sign she'd even heard her. "I went out to the house on Pacific Heights. Until five years ago I'd lived there my entire life, you know. I'd expected to die there. I just—I suppose I just wanted to see it before it was emptied of all its furniture, its very soul."
Annie quickly sifted through Sarah's drama to the facts of what she was saying. "You went inside?"
"I still have a key." She glanced up, cracker crumbs on her pale, purplish lips. "My brother didn't change the locks after I left San Francisco."
Or after the murders, Annie thought. But if the killer was Vic Denardo, he hadn't had to break in to do his handiwork. Even if it wasn't Denardo, there'd been no sign of forced entry, at least according to the press accounts she'd read. Security hadn't been the problem that terrible night. "You weren't afraid of being seen?"
Sarah smiled grimly. "Who would recognize me?"
She had a point. The pictures of her in the newspapers at the time of the murders showed a very different woman from the one Annie knew. That Sarah Linwood had worn pearls and cashmere, had been every inch the Linwood heiress. Now, in her red corduroy jacket and pilled polyester flowered top, with her debilitating illness, she wasn't a woman her family would readily recognize as one of their own.
"No one was around," she went on. "My footsteps echoed in a way I've never heard. It was almost as if the walls were trying to tell me something. I don't know how to explain—" She caught herself and glanced up at Annie. "I suppose you think I'm being ridiculous."
"Sarah, it's not my place to judge you. I wouldn't—"
"I kept telling myself it's only a house. I hadn't been there in so long, I thought time would have made it easier. But the memories flooded in, bad right along with the good. The wasted years, the years not knowing who I was, the deaths of two people I loved dearly—" She broke off, tears spilling into her eyes, making their blue even more vivid. "I know a lot of people don't think so, but I did love my father."
"Sarah..."
"Going back there..." Her voice cracked, but she seemed to will her tears not to spill down her cheeks. "It was as if someone had ripped out a piece of my soul." "I think I understand," Annie said quietly.
Sarah's head jerked up, her artist's incisiveness sharpening her gaze, yanking her out of her self-absorption. "Of course. Your grandmother's cottage. It was swept out to sea."
"I know it's not the same—"