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paintbrush. I was taking a painting class. The portrait was an assignment." She sank her head back into a tattered cushion. "Haley was my niece."
    Annie could barely contain her shock. "You were married to a Linwood?"
    Sarah glanced at her and, momentarily, looked amused. "Why do you think that?"
    Annie flushed. "Well, if Haley Linwood was your niece and isn't now, I assume you must be divorced—"
    Her face clouded and went pale. "No, no, Annie, that's not what I mean—" She faltered. "I used the past tense because Haley's dead."
    Dead? Annie felt her knees go out from under her. The red-haired girl in the painting was dead. That explained Garvin MacCrae's pained look at Annie's innocent, idiotic mention of his wife. The painting hadn't been a present for her. His wife was dead. No wonder the crowd had been rooting for him. They must all have known that was Haley Linwood MacCrae in the painting, and they'd thought the man who'd loved and married and lost her should have it.
    Sarah, clearly, hadn't troubled herself to give Annie a wide range of pertinent details before letting her walk into that auction room.
    "She and my father were murdered five years ago," Sarah went on softly. "Haley's father, John Linwood, arranged the auction today. He's my older brother. I'm Sarah Linwood."
    She paused, eyeing Annie as her words sank in. "A Linwood— you're a Linwood?"
    "Yes."
    "So that's how you could afford the ten thousand dollars you put into my account. But I don't understand—" Annie took a step into the living area, toward Sarah. "You don't live like a Linwood."
    The older woman smiled thinly. "Nor do I look like one, at least not anymore. Annie, I'm sorry. I knew you didn't realize who I was the other day, but I thought—I assumed you knew about the murders."
    The Linwood murders. Yes, Annie thought, feeling sick to her stomach. Now she remembered. Not everything—not the details— but enough to understand that sense that she'd been overlooking something she knew, missing something. "I suppose I did know. But I didn't—I just didn't make the connection between the auction today and a sensational case I read in the papers five years ago."
    "It's my fault. I should have explained. I've struggled to maintain my privacy—to go on with my life—and perhaps was more secretive than I should have been, in fairness to you. I hope you don't feel used."
    Annie stared out the windows overlooking San Francisco, noticing that the sun was shining through the clouds, scraps of blue sky visible, giving the city a sun-washed look. It was so damned pretty. She hadn't headed west to escape life's ugliness; she wasn't naive that way. But she hadn't expected it to catch up with her so soon, so terribly. She'd bought a painting of a murdered girl out from under the man who'd married and lost her. She was standing here, talking to a misshapen woman—a Linwood —whose father and niece had been murdered, who was obviously trying to keep her location secret from her wealthy, prominent family.
    "I just thought," Sarah went on tiredly, "that it would be simpler and easier if you didn't know who I was. You wouldn't be tempted to tell anyone, you'd have nothing to hide. Believe me, if Garvin MacCrae sensed you were trying to hide something from him, there'd be no peace."
    "Why? Does he think you had anything to do with the murders?"
    Her shoulders slumped. "I don't know what Garvin thinks. That I didn't tell the police everything I know, that I led them to the real killer, that I helped him get away. I just don't know. I haven't seen him in so long..." Her voice trailed off; the faded pink of the chintz cushions behind her made her face seem even grayer. "Maybe I should have stayed away."
    "Why did you leave? If it made people suspicious—"
    Her vivid eyes focused on Annie. "I left because I had to. I didn't think much about the consequences. I just knew I had to leave."
    "But now you've come back."
    "To San Francisco, yes."
    But not to her