Chapter Eighteen

Brent rubbed his eyes and looked around at the unfamiliar room. Light streamed in the window, suggesting that it was well past noon. His attention was drawn to his overnight bag and laptop by the small desk. Reassured, he stood up, remembering now where he was. He wandered over to his bag but found it empty.

He noticed the open closet door, his change of clothes on hangers and his shoes neatly shined. Scouring the room now, he located his underwear, socks and belt inside a dresser drawer. He found his comb, toothbrush and razor neatly laid out for him in the bathroom, along with a stack of fresh towels and a clean terry robe. Amused but pleased, Brent started the water for his shower.

After he had showered, shaved and dressed, he tapped on the door of the next room. Getting no answer, he pushed it gently. He found the bedclothes in disarray and Joe's few belongings unpacked. Brent headed down the stairs and found Joe in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee.

"How'd you sleep?" Brent asked, sitting down.

"Fine."

"How long have you been up?"

"Not long."

A young Mexican woman, a different one from the night before, set a cup of coffee in front of him. "Thank you," Brent told her. "What's your name?"

The woman didn't answer and walked to the other side of the kitchen and began stirring something in a bowl.

"This one doesn't speak much English," Joe said.

"I see." Brent blew on his coffee. "Where's Cece this morning?"

"You mean this afternoon?"

He looked at the clock on the wall. Two o'clock. "Okay. Where is she?"

Joe shrugged. "I haven't seen her since last night."

"Does the maid know? I thought you spoke Spanish."

"I do."

"Then why don't you ask?"

Joe drained the last of his coffee and set the cup down with a thump. After casting an annoyed look at Brent, he went to where the maid was greasing a cookie tin. "Dónde está Cece?"

The young woman gestured toward the back door. "Está en el studio, segundo piso del edificio de atrás."

Joe thanked her and returned to the breakfast table. "Says she's in her studio. It's the upstairs floor of some building out back."

"Let's go have a look," Brent said, standing up.

Joe shook his head. "Didn't anybody ever tell you it's bad manners to go barging in on someone in their studio? She might not want to be disturbed. I know I sure don't want people just wandering in when I'm working."

"But she could be in there all day."

"Hey, I want to get this over with, too. I just also know I get pissed when people interrupt me when I'm working. I don't want her getting mad at us and refusing to help. This has to be handled carefully."

"Cece doesn't strike me as the kind of person who gets mad about much of anything," Brent said. He motioned with his head toward the door.

"I don't know how you've become the expert on women around here," Joe grumbled, following him out the door onto the patio.

"And I don't know why you're in such a bad mood today."

"I've got a lot on my mind, okay? You, of all people, should know that."

Brent looked around the back yard, taking in the shaded wrought iron benches and a few pieces of old and crumbling statuary amid dense shrubbery carved into vaguely animal shapes. A small building to the left caught his eye-- a tiny iron-columned replica of the main house, its spires and narrow diamond-paned windows glittering in the weak winter light.

When they got to the door, they found it locked. Joe pushed Brent aside and pulled on it hard. Finding that he couldn't open it, he looked around and spotted an outside staircase leading to a door on the second floor.

At the top of the steps, Joe tapped on the door and a woman shouted for him to come in. They stepped into a large expanse of wood flooring and paneled walls lit by windows and skylights. In the middle of the room sat Cece at her easel, dressed in cuffed jeans and a billowing man's dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She set down a sable brush and smiled. "Good morning, gentlemen. How did you sleep?"

"Just fine, thank you," Joe said. "I hope we're not disturbing you."

"Of course not." Cece stood and spread her arms in welcome. "I love having visitors to my studio. I get so few, especially persons with great artistic talent. I'm afraid my own mediocre efforts must suffer by comparison." She indicated with a sweep of her arm the canvases, finished and unfinished, hanging about the room and leaning against the walls.

Joe's lips curled in amusement. "I'm hardly some great talent. I've just been lucky." He walked over to a painting of hyacinths in a bowl, done in broad brushstrokes and vivid yellows and reds. "I sure can't paint."

"I bet you just haven't tried," Cece said, hovering at his elbow. "I'm surprised Elise didn't get you hooked on it. Someone with your ability to capture emotion in wood must be able to transfer that talent to other mediums."

When Joe answered with a disbelieving look, she put a hand on his arm and went on. "I've seen so much of your work, you know. That one at St. Catherine of Siena's took my breath away the first time I saw it. Such a fine, gentle expression on her face and such delicate features. It makes you think she loves you enough to pray you straight into heaven."

"That sounds a little sacrilegious," Joe said. "But I'm glad you like it."

"I've always been a fan of your work, even your early metal works. But I especially love your carvings. I'm on one of the committees at the contemporary arts museum, you know, and I've been trying for over a year now to convince them to add one of your pieces to the collection."

Joe, clearly flattered, was about to respond when Brent, who had been standing uneasily to one side during this exchange, cleared his throat. Cece glanced sharply at him.

"We were wondering," Brent said, "If you've had a chance to get in touch with Elise yet."

Cece blinked in surprise. "What time is it?"

"A little after two."

"Oh dear. Where does the time go? I meant to call at noon." She glanced around her studio as if looking for something. "I can't call from up here," she pointed out. "I refuse to bring my phone in here because I don't want any distractions." Her gaze fell on her palette of fresh oils and her dirty brushes lying on a rag next to a cup of linseed oil. "Why don't you two go inside and ask Petra to make you some sandwiches. There's some delicious shrimp salad that she made yesterday. I'll clean up here and be inside in a few minutes. I'll call Elise right after we eat."

After casting a quick warning glance at Brent, Joe gave a semblance of a shrug. "That'll be fine. We'll see you downstairs in a few minutes." They went down the staircase and made their way toward the house.

"She's stalling," Brent said.

"I know."

"Why didn't you call her on it?"

"What was I supposed to do? Demand she drop everything and take us to where Elise is staying?"

"That wouldn't be such a bad idea."

"Sure. And she either calls ahead and tips her off, or else gets pissed and refuses to help us at all." Joe gave a grim shake of his head. "Women stick together. If Cece was lying to us last night, we're out of luck, anyway. And if she was telling the truth that Elise is staying put for a few days, we'll have to play the game her way for awhile. Soften her up a bit."

Brent let out a chuckle. "Well, it won't take much. That woman is crazy about you."

"I don't know what you're talking about. If she seems friendly, it's just because she likes my work. A lot of people like it, you know."

Brent scoffed. "Enough with the humility bullshit, okay? As if I didn't know you've been featured in at least half a dozen magazines. Elise loves to brag on you, you know."

"No, I didn't know."

"Well she does. Did. Anyway, Cece has a lot more than art on her mind."

"She seems sincere enough."

"Oh, I don't doubt her sincerity," Brent said. "I just think that if I were you, I'd be a little more careful. If you'd given her half a chance she would've been all over you back there in the studio."

"Don't go judging other people by your own weak moral standards," Joe snapped. "She's just an old friend of Elise. Of course she's going to be nice. That doesn't mean she's the kind of woman who'd have designs on her friend's husband. I'm sure she's got better character than some people. People like you."

"All I'm saying is it looked like she might have a little more than art on her mind. This could be good, you know. Maybe you could use her interest in you to try and get her to tell us where Elise is."

Joe stopped. "You know, for all your brains, you can really say some stupid things sometimes. If Cece does like me as something more than a fellow artist, that would make her less likely to want to tell us where Elise is, don't you think?" He turned and started back up the path. "So it's a good thing she doesn't like me that way."

Brent's eyebrows flickered. "Whatever you say."