Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

your father—” Dottie began.
    Lacey kept talking. “Without my grandfather I’d be trying to be something I’m not, a society woman instead of an artist. I don’t ask you to support my choices with money or hugs. But, damn it, don’t act like I need your permission, either. He left the paintings to me, not you. He died before I understood how much he meant to me. The least I can do is try to resurrect him from undeserved anonymity as an artist.”
    “Still dying to do David Quinn: Biography of an Unknown Artist ?” Brody asked.
    “I want to know where I came from. I love my family, but I don’t fit in. My sisters do.” She grinned wryly at her mother. “Two out of three ain’t bad, right?”
    “Lacey,” her mother said, hugging her. “We love you.”
    “And I love both of you,” she said, returning the hug. “But that doesn’t mean we’re the same kind of people. The older I get, the more like myself I get and the less like either of you. Grandpa Rainbow understood that. He understood me at a time when it meant…everything. Now I want the world to understand how great he really was.”
    Brody sat down at the table and put his head in his hands. What a royal mess . But all he said aloud was, “Okay, you want to find out all about your beloved grandfather, my father, who was as self-absorbed a bastard as ever came down the road.” He looked up at his baffling daughter. “You’re the only one he really noticed, you know. He just tolerated the rest of us.”
    Lacey didn’t know what to say.
    “He wasn’t a nice man,” Brody said finally. “Finding out more about him won’t help you, but it sure could make you sad. Leave it alone, Lacey. Some people aren’t what you want them to be.”
    “He was an extraordinary artist,” she said stubbornly. “I’m sorry he wasn’t a good father or husband, but…”
    “You’re going to do it anyway.”
    She nodded. “That’s why he left everything to me. Even though he never signed a painting, he knew the value of his art. So did I. You didn’t.”
    After a moment Brody said, “What happens if this fancy painter at the auction doesn’t see anything special in my father’s paintings?”
    “I’d be shocked.”
    “I wouldn’t. If ever a man deserved obscurity, he did.”
    Lacey smiled sadly. “Art and deserving don’t go together much. Look at history.”
    Brody didn’t have to. He had his own problems. The less the world knew about his reprobate father, the better. A man bucking for a judicial appointment didn’t need any skeletons crawling out of the family closet.
    “Lacey,” he said slowly, “I ask you again. Leave it alone.”
    “I’m sorry, Dad. I can’t. But don’t worry, I’ve made sure that I’ll be anonymous, so you won’t need to worry about…” She paused, then shrugged. “You know, the wrong kind of publicity for you when you’re at a crucial point in your career.”
    “Anonymous,” her father said. “I don’t understand.”
    “Grandfather never signed his paintings, so we don’t have to worry about that. Instead of bringing the canvases under my name or my store’s name, I taped an e-mail address to the back of the canvases as a contact number. The address is a new one under an invented name, January Marsh. And if anyone manages to track me down despite that and asks where I got the paintings, I’ll just say I found them at a garage sale. Given my line of work, it’s an obvious way to account for my possession of Granddad’s art.”
    Brody made a sound that could have meant anything, then let it go. If she was wrong about her grandfather’s genius, this would all die a quiet death. If she wasn’t…
    Well, he’d burn that bridge when he came to it.

Los Angeles
    January
    Tuesday morning
2
    I an Lapstrake hadn’t been raised by fools. When Dana Gaynor, copartner of Rarities Unlimited, started in on him with a voice like an ice-tipped whip, he stood up straight and paid attention.
    “Listen, boyo,” she said, borrowing one of her partner S. K. Niall’s favorite nouns, “I’m getting damn tired of you ignoring your e-mail. How are we supposed to keep you up-to-date on your projects?”
    “I always have my pager turned on.”
    “Screw your pager.”
    “I’m not that desperate yet, but thanks for the thought.”
    Dana glared at Ian’s dark eyes and gentle trust-me smile. She opened her mouth to tear a strip off him, but snickered instead. He looked as innocent as a puppy.
    He