Vivian shot him a suspicious glance. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I was just confirming the gallery owner’s opinion. If she’s willing to hang your photos in spite of the rumors of your newspaper work, it’s obvious she has a lot of confidence in her own taste.”
Vivian looked a little more cheerful. “Yes, it is.”
“Huh.”
She gave him another wary look. “Now what?”
“I was just wondering when the rumors about your descent into the world of scandal sheet photography got started.”
“I’m not sure. After I moved to Adelina Beach I did some work in the old-fashioned pictorial style. But my heart wasn’t really in it. I found it interesting from a technical point of view but not compelling, if you know what I mean.”
“I think so.”
“It was when I moved into the new, modernist style that I found my feet as an artist, so to speak. The first couple of pictures, both landscapes, got some attention. Kempton actually took both and sold them. But shortly after that the rejections started.”
“Interesting.”
Vivian shot him a quick, searching look. “Something happened out here while I was inside the gallery, didn’t it?”
“How can you tell?” he asked, intrigued.
She waved a hand. “Let’s just say I can feel it. Something about your energy.” She glanced down. “And Rex’s energy, too. Both of you look—I don’t know—as if you were a couple of hunters who had picked up a trail.”
He smiled, cold satisfaction moving through his veins. “That’s exactly what happened. You’re good at this kind of thing.”
“Well? What happened?”
He took her arm. “Let’s have coffee. I’ll tell you all about it.”
He waited until they were seated at a small table in a sidewalk café, two cups of coffee in front of them, Rex stretched out under a chair.
“I saw the man with the cap and the wrong posture,” Nick said quietly.
Vivian had been about to take a sip of coffee. She went very still.
“Where?”
“He was watching us from an alley on the other side of the plaza. No, don’t look around. He’s gone now anyway.”
“You’re sure it was the same man that we saw in the photos I took at the fire?”
“Same slouch, same build, same cap. Too far away to be sure about the shoes, but it was the same man. Even if the clothes had been wrong I would have noticed him.”
“Why? Is he that unusual?”
“No, that’s just it. He’s very, very good at making himself unnoticeable. Which is, of course, why I caught him watching us.”
“I don’t . . . oh, wait. I get it. He stood out simply because he was trying hard not to stand out.”
“Right,” Nick said, pleased that she understood. “But there was something else, too. You know what it’s like when you get the sensation someone is watching you? You turn around and, sure enough, the person is looking at you and you know it’s not an accident, because just as you’re about to lock eyes, he turns away a little too quickly.”
“Of course. Most people have had that experience. Is that the feeling you got?”
“Yes.” Nick picked up his cup and swallowed some coffee. Enjoying the whisper of knowing. The certainty.
Rex’s ears twitched. He raised his head, silently asking if it was time to hunt. Nick reached down and gave him a pat.
“Not yet, pal,” he said.
Vivian looked at him over the rim of her cup. “What do we do now?”
“We return to the hotel and act like nothing happened. I will call Luther Pell and let him know our guy is here in Burning Cove and watching us. The time has come for Pell to call the Broker and put the word out that a certain journal of handwritten poems is for sale at a very high price.”
Chapter 32
Burning Cove
Later that afternoon . . .
Jonathan Treyherne dropped the receiver of the pay phone back into the cradle and stood quietly for a moment, trying to get his nerves under control. His heart was pounding and he was sweating hard.
His offer had been accepted. The Broker had just informed him the journal was in the hands of an anonymous individual who was willing to sell at an absurd price. The Broker had advised him against going through with the deal. No book of poetry was worth the huge sum the seller was demanding. But Jonathan had insisted the handwritten poems were the work of a famous, long-dead poet and that the volume was worth a fortune to collectors.
The Broker had gone on to explain it would take time to work out the logistics of the transaction. The arrangements had to be acceptable to both buyer and seller. There were a number of ways to carry out such business deals, according to the Broker. The safest method was to use a trusted, professional go-between. Jonathan had refused that approach. He did not want to take the risk of allowing someone else to get hold of the journal, not even for the length of time it took to complete the transaction.
There was another reason why he did not want anyone else involved. He needed to get close to the seller; close enough to kill him.
The phone booth was located at a gas station. Jonathan had parked behind the garage. He got into his car and drove back to the isolated cottage he had rented on a bluff overlooking the cove. He had chosen the house and the location because it afforded ample privacy but the amenities were limited. Among other things there was no phone so he had been obliged to use pay phones to stay in touch with the Broker.
When he got back to the cottage he let himself inside, poured a stiff shot of whiskey, and lit a cigarette. He went outside onto the porch and looked down at the rough surf crashing on the rocks. The sky had been cloudless all day but he had lived by oceans all his life, first on the East Coast and now here in California. He had learned to sail when he was a boy. He knew how to read the sea as well as surfers and yachtsmen did. There might not be any clouds in sight but the waves were thrashing too roughly in the cove and there was a subtle swell lifting the incoming tide. The breeze off the sea was picking up. A storm was approaching. It would probably make landfall in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
He liked storms. They provided both a distraction and a cover. It was easy to remain hidden in a good storm. The subject never saw you coming.
He forced himself to think in his customary strategic manner. The problem of the journal was on the way to being resolved. He would set it aside for now. It was time to focus once again on the commission.
Today he had begun to suspect that the man who accompanied Vivian Brazier everywhere was not a lover, after all. That meant he was more of a problem than he had appeared to be at first glance.