“Yes, I know it, but not the combination,” Tess said.
“I’m going to send it to you. Put the paintings in the safe. Right now, honey. Hang up the phone and do it right now.”
“But, Dad,” Tess said, “I wanted to ask you about—”
“Nothing else is important at this moment, honey,” Indigo said. “Get those paintings into the safe, and then call me back.”
“Okay, Dad,” Tess said. “I will.”
But he had already hung up. A moment later, a text message from him came through. A series of numbers and symbols. The combination to the wall safe.
Tess hurried up the stairs and to the studio door. After her odd experience the previous night, she was none too excited to go back inside, but she shoved the steamer trunk out of the way, her “alarms” falling to the floor and clanging as she did so.
Everything was as it had been when she left the previous night. She held her breath and walked across the room to where she had set the paintings. They were in the same order . . . weren’t they? As she viewed them, she realized they took a rather strange progression.
First the ominous image of the cliff, then the woman posing in the studio, then the woman on the street, then the series of images of looking into the windows of Wharton houses, and then the depictions of Wharton’s streets at night.
It was as though the paintings were a series, telling a story. But what could it be?
Tess stared at the images for a long moment, and then she realized. She was looking at the series backward. It started on the streets and progressed, at last, to the cliff. The realization sent a cold shiver through her. What could it mean? Did it mean anything?
She shook off those wonderings and got to the business at hand. Her father had told her to take the paintings down to the wall safe, and that was what she was going to do. He was right. She needed to get them out of sight before anyone else, even Wyatt, came back. As nice as the people were that she had met in Wharton—Wyatt, Hunter, Grant, and even Jim and Jane—the prospect of $100 million might turn any of them into a thief. Or worse.
So, Tess carried the paintings down to the drawing room, making several trips, walking slowly and carefully. She pressed the combination of numbers and letters her father had sent into the keypad, and the lock clicked.
As the safe swung open, Tess saw it was empty. Her parents must’ve taken their important papers and anything else with them to Florida when they moved permanently, she reasoned. That was just fine with her. She slid the paintings into the safe—they all fit inside, just barely—and closed it.
Her heart was racing. She could feel eyes boring into the back of her neck, as though someone were watching.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tess sank onto the sofa and dialed her father.
“Everything’s in the safe?” he asked her. Not even a hello.
“Yes,” Tess said. “They all fit. Closed and locked.”
“Good,” Indigo said. “Don’t do anything with them. Just leave them in there. They sat inside Dad’s studio for all of these years undisturbed. They can sit in the safe a little longer until your mother and I can make the trip back to Wharton. We can make arrangements to come just as soon as—”
Tess shook her head. “Dad, this weather has been crazy. The worst winter here in a long time. You stay put until we can make sure you’re not going to get caught in another blizzard driving all the way to Wharton from the airport in Minneapolis.”
Indigo sighed aloud. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “I was thinking—the sale of these paintings is going to substantially change the foundation. I’ll meet with Eli to talk about it when we get there, but what I think we should do is bolster your and Eli’s personal accounts—your mother and I don’t need anything—and then figure out with Eli how best to use the rest of those funds. You should be in on those conversations, too. You get a say in how we use this money. And it goes without saying, honey, but I’m paying for all of the renovations on the house. That shouldn’t come out of your pocket.”
“Oh, Dad, no, I—”
“I don’t want to hear another word about it, okay? You just hire whoever you need to hire to transform that studio into an owner’s suite for yourself. You have my blessing to do it. It’s about time.”
Tess’s stomach knotted at the thought of it. Yes, renovating the studio had been her plan. But after the previous night? Now she wasn’t so sure. And what the foundation was going to do with the money from the sale of the paintings was the last thing on her mind.