Having come straight to her gallery from Belvedere, she had her car with her and headed straight up to her apartment. The idea was to drop Otto off and let him resume his recovery in peace, but he refused to get out of the car. Annie didn't know if he had bad memories of Friday night or just felt more at home in the back of her station wagon or if he was just being stubborn, but she didn't insist.
It was a bright, still, warm winter Sunday, and San Franciscans were out enjoying it. Pushing back a wave of envy, Annie drove up to Sarah's little cul-de-sac, Otto flopped out in the backseat. With no empty parking space, she turned around to head back down the hill and park on the street below, but as she passed Sarah's house, she saw that the front door was slightly ajar. Even for Sarah Linwood, that was odd.
Annie swung into an illegal space right in front of Sarah's doorstep and jumped out, not bothering with her keys or Otto, not caring if she was overreacting.
She pushed on the door. "Sarah? It's me, Annie."
No answer. She pushed the door open several more inches and peered inside.
"Sarah? Are you all right?"
The door struck Sarah's cane, which was lying on the floor. Annie felt a surge of panic, tried to stifle it, and thrust open the door, praying silently that Sarah had just mislaid her cane and had been in some artistic trance and just hadn't shut her door properly.
Her heart stopped the moment she crossed the threshold.
Sarah was crumpled up on the floor at the base of her easel. Root vegetables were scattered around her, her rickety table knocked on its side.
"Sarah!"
Annie lurched to her, dropped to her knees, expected blood, a weak pulse, death; she pushed back the image of Gran lying still, utterly lifeless, in her sterile hospital bed, of her mother, nothing but bones and yellowed skin. I can't fall apart. I have to keep going. Words then, words now.
Sarah lay on her side in a heap of cheap flowered smock and elastic-waist polyester pants. Had she simply worked to the point of exhaustion and fallen? Annie leaned over her in an attempt to see her face and check if she was breathing. So far, no blood. "Sarah..."
She moaned.
Alive. At least she was alive.
"Sarah, what happened? Can you talk? Can you move?"
"My head..."
Even as she croaked out the words, Annie saw the swelling at the base of Sarah's head under her left ear. No, she hadn't fallen. "Someone whacked you good," she said, trying to sound optimistic. Had Sarah been knocked unconscious? For how long? "I'll get ice. Then I need to call for help."
No answer, no movement.
Annie staggered to her feet, made it to the refrigerator, dumped out a tray of ice into the sink and collected a half-dozen cubes into one of Sarah's frayed, paint-stained dish towels. She was shaking, trying to keep tears and panic at bay, even as she kept talking. "I'm coming, Sarah. Gosh, this ice is cold. It'll help. You'll be fine." She kept her voice chatty, optimistic. "I know you will. You're too hardheaded to let a whack on the head slow you down for long."
Sarah hadn't moved. Annie placed the towel of ice on the swelling. Moaning, Sarah raised a gnarled hand and held the ice herself. "Thank you," she whispered.
"Just lie still. I'll call—"
"The painting."
Annie went still. "What?"
Wincing in pain, Sarah licked her purplish lips and just managed to speak. "Haley. Check...please. My bedroom."
"That can wait—"
Her free hand shot out and caught Annie's wrist in a vise grip. "Check," she said desperately, in spite of her weakness and pain. "Please."
Not wanting to agitate her further, Annie got to her feet. Her legs were shaking, her stomach twisted into painful knots of fear and tension. The portrait of Haley Linwood MacCrae. The start of it all. Annie had been thinking about it that morning after reading the article on Sarah in the Sunday paper, where in a stark, single sentence, the reporter had stated that the painting had hung in the room where both Thomas Linwood and his granddaughter had been murdered. It wasn't news. It wasn't anything Annie or Garvin or Sarah or almost anyone else in San Francisco didn't know. But Annie had been unable to shake the sentence from her mind. She didn't know why.
She checked under Sarah's simple twin bed, in her near-empty closet. She checked every canvas leaned up against the wall.
The portrait of Haley Linwood was gone.
Annie went out into the main room and checked there, noticing only that Sarah's key chain had been taken apart on her little kitchen table, keys scattered. She returned to Sarah and knelt beside her, the ice still on the base of her neck. "The painting's gone, Sarah. But we can worry about that later, okay? Right now I need to call an ambulance. I don't think you should move until they get here."
"All right," she said weakly, tears dribbling down across the bridge of her nose.
"Sarah..."
"Go. Call. I'll be fine."
Annie had no choice. With no phone, she had to leave Sarah alone. She covered her with a pilled, brightly colored knitted afghan before starting out.
But before she finished the task, Garvin MacCrae and Vic Denardo burst through the door. Annie could see them sizing up the situation even as Garvin grabbed her by the elbows. His eyes were dark pits, focused, determined, any fear buried deep. "What happened?"