The Stolen Canvas(54)
She stared at him as he walked toward the stairs. His shirt had pulled away from his belt, and his shoulders drooped. His too-long hair straggled against his collar. He has come back for me! She thought he had gone for good, but he loved her. He must love her!
But something inside her knew; she recognized yet another lie she was telling herself.
He wanted her to pack her bag and take off. Just like that, with no goodbyes and no explanations. How could she do that to Annie, and to everyone who had befriended her?
“No, Jem,” she said, stepping ahead of him. “I’m not ready to go yet. There are things I have to …” The hard glitter in his eyes stopped her.
“I told you to call me J.C.!” he screamed angrily. “We’re going, but first you’re going to show me where those pretty pictures are. You didn’t think I’d forget our plan, did you?”
She shook her head, suddenly aware of what she should have known all along. He didn’t love her, but only wanted what he could take from her. “No!” she said, blocking his way. “I’m not going to do this. It’s wrong. It would hurt Annie. It would hurt everyone who has been so kind to me. I couldn’t …”
He pushed past her and headed up the stairs. She scrambled after him, grabbing the tail of his shirt. “Please, Jem! I have some money … you can have it …”
He continued up the steps, stumbling a little, and pushed open the door to the attic. He turned around to face her, his face an angry mask. “Now get it!” He paused, stroking his jaw with grubby fingers. Tara saw that he’d bitten his nails to the quick. “No, I’ll need more than just one. Get two. Get three.”
“I don’t know where they are,” she lied. She’d helped Annie get the one named Country Meadow Fantasy ready for Ian. It was to be sold at a New York auction, and the proceeds given to the animal shelter.
Jem climbed the stairs to the attic, dragging Tara with him. He began pushing trunks and crates around, tearing at boxes and knocking them off shelves. “Either you show me, or I’ll find them myself. I’ll tear this place apart!”
The sound of crashing and tinkling shattered the air. Boots howled, and the kitten in her bedroom cried like a lost thing. “Stop!” Tara pleaded. “Please don’t do this!” More boxes thudded to the floor. A doll with a china head clattered against a trunk, its head breaking in two.
“All right! All right!” Tara screamed. “I’ll get it.” She leaned back against a tall bureau and dropped her arms to her sides in defeat.
Triumph glittered in his eyes. “That’s better! Now make it fast.”
“I’m not sure where …” she stammered. If she could just buy some time, someone might come. Maybe Annie would return. But what would happen then? Would Jem stop? Or would he … ? She dared not finish that thought. If Jem were desperate enough, and drunk enough, he might hurt Annie. Was he drunk? He was mean enough to be.
She forced herself not to look where the framed canvases rested flat, carefully wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. She played at opening drawers; she looked behind dusty furniture.
“Come on! Big pictures like the one in the Brown Library wouldn’t be there!” Jem whined. His foot caught the rung of the ladder propped up against the wall. “Get up there and look!” he commanded, nudging her roughly toward the ladder.
She climbed slowly, reaching the shelf where the large needlework pieces were stored. “I don’t see them,” she said and started to back down the ladder.
“What’s in the brown paper?” he asked, narrowing his eyes and peering up.
She stood stock-still on the ladder, her heart pounding, but she knew he’d guessed.
“Hand it down,” he said, stretching his arms up. “And be careful.”
Be careful. He had just torn through precious treasures that Annie’s grandmother had preserved over a lifetime, and he was telling her to be careful! She was trembling with anger and fear as she grasped the edges of the large canvas.
“No, don’t come down them steps yet. There’s more up there. I seen ’em,” he said, his innate poor grammar resurfacing. Jem balanced the first package against the adjacent wall and turned back to her. “Give me that one too.” Even in the dark attic she could see his eyes shining with greed. “And that one!”
The shelf was stripped of its treasures, and her heart was stripped of the love she once had had for him.
Tara descended the ladder and began mechanically to clean up the mess Jem had made. Elizabeth Holden’s beautiful handwork—hours of love and patience and skill—lost. Annie’s inheritance stolen. It was all her fault. If only she’d never come. If only she had told the truth from the beginning.