Mariah Stewart: On Sunset Beach

“She gave her paintings away?”

“I thought that would get your attention.”

“Seriously? She gave them away? Who’d she give them to?”

“I guess her family, her friends. She made a list. It fell out of the journal I was reading.” Carly unfolded the paper. “Stop me if you recognize any of these names …”

She started reading the list aloud. Ellie stopped her only once.

“That last name was Sinclair? I know Grace Sinclair. You’ve met her, I think,” Ellie said. “Actually, I’ve seen that painting—well, a painting—in the lobby at the Inn at Sinclair’s Point.”

“Carolina gave several paintings to someone with that last name. I can’t read the first name, though.”

“Could be someone related to Grace’s husband. His family has been in St. Dennis for a really long time. I can ask her.”

“Could you maybe ask her if she knows any of the other names? I can scan the list and email it to you.”

“Sure.”

“Great. I’d love to track down these paintings.”

“And then what?”

“What?”

“What if you’re able to track some of them down? What then?”

“Well, first I’ll see if I can buy them. If not, I’ll see if we can borrow them for the exhibit in my gallery. I think once people see how much Carolina’s work can fetch, they might give serious consideration to selling.”

“Maybe.” Ellie sounded thoughtful. “But don’t be surprised if some might want to hold on to them if the paintings have been in their family for a long time. Then again, don’t be surprised if some of them have disappeared over the years. You know, if they were thought to be of no real value back then, some of those paintings might not still be around.”

“I guess we’ll just have to let that play out. First, we have to figure out who these people are and then determine if they still have the paintings.”

“I’ll do my best. I’ll be seeing Grace soon. We’re both on a committee to decide what to do about the Enright property.”

“What’s the Enright property?”

“Curtis Enright recently signed over the title of his home to the town, and everyone in St. Dennis is all abuzz about it. He set up a trust for maintenance and taxes, so it isn’t going to cost the town anything. He wants it used as an arts center.”

“Great idea. Every town should have one.”

“It would be awesome,” Ellie agreed. “I’ll show Grace your list when I see her next Tuesday, see if she knows anyone on it or has any thoughts on where some of the paintings might be.”

Carly felt a nip of disappointment. “Not till next week? I was hoping for something a little sooner.”

“Can’t do it. Grace’s son is coming back from Africa tomorrow. Or maybe it was today.” Ellie paused. “Anyway, he’s been away for a couple of years and has quit the … I forget whether he was in the Peace Corps or something else. UN Peacekeeper maybe? Whatever. Grace has been over the moon about him coming home, so this week’s meeting has been moved to next week. Besides, don’t you have something else to do? A book to write? A gallery or four to run?”

“All of that, yes. Fortunately, I have very competent staffs in the galleries, and the exhibits that are currently running were set up before I got distracted by your great-great-grandmother and her glorious hidden stash of art. So I’m really concentrating on the book mostly. I’m almost finished, but I don’t want to rush it. I want it to be good and I want it to be accurate. I want Carolina’s spirit to show through.”

“Sounds like you’re getting to know the old girl quite well.”

“I really feel as if I am. The more I read, the more I think she was a very modern woman trapped in an archaic world.”

“Nice subtitle.”

“Hmm.” Carly wrote down her words in the margin of her notebook before she forgot them. “Maybe. Thanks for the idea.”

“Don’t mention it. Gotta run. Got an early date with the alarm clock. Send me your list whenever, and I’ll see what I can dig up for you.”

The ink on Carolina’s list was faded and hard to read, so Carly photocopied it then scanned it into her computer. She enlarged and darkened the text before sending it to Ellie, who probably hadn’t expected to receive it that quickly. But Carly was compelled to get that phase of the project moving, lest it weigh on her mind until it was in Ellie’s hands. The job done, she sat back at her desk and picked up the journal.

“So, let’s see what other surprises you have in store for me, Carolina.” Carly rested her feet on the desk and crossed her ankles. “What other secrets have you been hiding for the past hundred or so years …”

Working on the effects of caffeine, Carly read for several more hours before falling asleep at the desk. When she finally awoke, every part of her body was cramped. Upon standing, she found her left leg numb from having sat with it under her for all that time. She stretched and flexed until she could walk without stumbling.

Through the French doors of the study, she could see the first pale colors of dawn. She unlocked the doors and stepped out onto the patio. The air was still, heavy with humidity, and saturated with the heady fragrance of honeysuckle mingled with rose. She inhaled deeply, then walked on bare feet to the edge of the stone wall that surrounded the patio. The only sound was the waterfall that overlooked the pool. She lowered herself onto one of the lounge chairs and leaned back to watch the stars as their last light flickered before disappearing with the dawn. Tired but still buzzed, in her mind she arranged, then rearranged Carolina’s paintings on the walls of her Manhattan gallery for what was probably the fiftieth time.

While she’d earlier professed to her mother that she no longer felt a need to prove herself, in her heart, Carly knew that wasn’t quite true. She was well aware that many in the art world considered her a lightweight, a wannabe player with deep pockets behind her. Armed with her degrees and her parents’ money, she’d boldly opened the gallery in Tribeca when she was twenty-five years old, but she’d heard the talk then, and sometimes she still heard a whisper here and there. Her petite size and long blond hair had given rise to a host of snarky comments about “Alice in Wonderland using her daddy’s money to take on the big boys.”

It had taken several years before she’d been taken seriously, but these days, there didn’t seem to be as much comment on her appearance as there once had been. She’d worked hard to establish relationships with artists whom she considered up-and-comers, treating them as important long before they became relevant, and, in doing so, had a long list of now-prominent artists who would deal only with her. She had not been unaware of the presence of other gallery owners at the last of her several openings. The word on the street was that Carly Summit had a knack for finding and cultivating the artists who would become the next big thing. Her reputation was flawless, yet she knew that more than one rival turned green with envy every time she announced a new showing for an artist they’d hoped to exhibit.

“Well, tough,” she muttered. She’d earned her good name the hard way. Yes, her parents had fronted the money for her galleries—she’d never tried to deny that—but she’d paid them back in full. She was pretty sure that there were some who still believed that Patrick and Roberta still wrote the checks, but there was nothing Carly could do about that. Still, her success and her reputation aside, she sometimes felt that she had to work her butt off to prove that she was the real deal.

Which was why, she acknowledged, Carolina Ellis now dominated her days and nights. Once Carly announced her find and her plans to introduce the long-hidden paintings to the public, no one would ever again be able to question her legitimacy.