My cell phone rang just as I walked outside.
It was Angus. “Hey, Daisy, we’re going to need help appraising all this stuff. These dolls look authentic, but I have a reputation to uphold. We need an expert.”
I rolled my eyes. Hadn’t I already told him that?
Never mind. I peered through the store window, where Ardine was still at the register, talking to Jeanne. “I think I know just the person.”
• • •
On Saturday morning, Joe said he was going to see Tracy McEvoy.
“I was talking to Mac at that show, and she said she’d give me some tips on making miniatures. Told me to stop by today if I wanted.”
I remembered the statuesque blonde in the red halter dress and my stomach tightened.
“Want to come with me?”
“Sure. Okay,” I said, as casually as I could.
When Angus was wrongly accused of murder, I’d spent a lot of time investigating the case before Serrano arrived in town. It had all worked out well in the end and I’d found the real killer, but Joe, patient to a point, felt neglected, to say the least. We were still feeling our way back to the former closeness we’d enjoyed.
We headed out toward Forty Acre Road, where the houses were few and far between, and where my friend Joy David owned an upscale bed-and-breakfast called the Four Foxes.
We missed the turnoff to Mac’s place a couple of times until I finally spotted the sign for Deerpath Road, almost hidden in the trees on the corner of a narrow country lane. It was another few hundred yards before we came to the mailbox for number nine Deerpath.
A gravel driveway led up to a cedar-shingled high-peaked contemporary house. There wasn’t a weed in sight, in spite of the length of the drive. The grass was recently cut and a gorgeous crimson and gold Japanese maple in front was pruned and well mulched.
The studio was behind the house, in the same contemporary construction with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and a brick patio. We parked where the driveway ended with landscaping timbers set against the grass.
A black cat darted across in front of us and disappeared into the woods.
A magical place.
The wide Craftsman door to the studio opened and Mac stood there, wearing paint-spattered jeans and a ripped T-shirt exposing her toned arms. I didn’t want to stare at her chest, but I thought I could make out a logo for Temple University. The shirt must have been red at one time, but was now a dull rose. It was probably round-necked originally, too, but she’d slit it down into a V-neck and ripped the sleeves off.
“You made it.” Her gaze swept over me, but it was a neutral appraisal. I couldn’t decide if she was irritated that I was along for the ride, or if she couldn’t care less.
“Come on in.”
We followed her into a light-filled space with natural oak floors. Wood beams lined the swooping curves in the roof, and the walls were off-white. Easels held paintings in progress, and finished works hung along the wall to our left.
I stopped to admire one in particular. “Hey, these are really good. I think a friend of mine has one of your paintings.” Eleanor had a similar one hanging above her fireplace, of a barn at sunrise and a man walking across snow-covered fields with his dog.
“I don’t sell many. I’d rather keep them.”
I stared after her as she strode through the studio toward the carpentry workbenches, the jeans that encased her long legs worn pale in places.
I hadn’t realized she was an accomplished artist as well as an expert in miniatures. Jeez. She had more business than she knew what to do with, a fabulous workspace, and obviously boatloads of cash. The paintings were simply a way to express herself, not to make money.