Read The Widow for Free Online Page A

stammered. “I have to go.”
    And she left him without another word, heading straight for Pompasse’s deserted studio.

4
    C harlie moved by instinct, avoiding the center of the house as she headed straight for Pompasse’s old studio. She half expected the French doors to be locked, but they opened easily enough, letting light and Charlie into the gloomy interior.
    Dust motes sparkled in the shaft of sunlight that lit the huge room, and the smell of turpentine and paint flooded her with memories. But it was overlaid with something else, something disturbing, and it took her a moment to recognize it.
    It was the smell of neglect. Cobwebs stretched across the inside shutters, dust was thick on the floor, and she could smell the unmistakable odor of a resurgent mouse population. Even the cats hadn’t been allowed into the atelier. Which meant that Pompasse hadn’t worked in a long, long time.
    Maguire had been right, though she hadn’t really doubted him. There were no canvases in the room. No sign of his art at all. He’d had periods of inactivity in the past, but never long enough to allow his studio to deteriorate into this. And where were his current paintings?
    He must have been working elsewhere. Astonishing as that notion might be, he had to have found another place to paint. Pompasse had lived at La Colombala for the past thirty years, and he’d always insisted that nowhere else had the same perfect light. But the idea of him not working at all was even more preposterous.
    She moved to one window, about to push open the shutter, when the room suddenly darkened as something filled the doorway, blocking out the sunlight. “What are you doing here?” a voice demanded in Italian.
    It was a young voice, full of shaky bravado, and Charlie pulled open the shutters, letting the light stream into the abandoned workroom before turning to face her questioner. It had been a rough day already, and she wasn’t really in the mood for another confrontation.
    â€œHi, Gia,” she said pleasantly enough. She didn’t make the mistake of crossing the room and pulling the girl’s slight figure into her arms in comfort. Giavianna Schiavone wouldn’t accept comfort from the likes of Charlie—she’d always been too jealous.
    Gia Schiavone was a slender, olive-skinned Modigliani sort of girl—with huge dark eyes and all the dubious wisdom of her twenty-some years heavy on her face. She had taken Charlie’s place as Pompasse’s model when she was fourteen, and taken her place as Pompasse’s lover when she was seventeen. Pompasse had always been fond of seventeen-year-olds, Charlie thought grimly. When she’d last seen Gia she’d been rebellious, devoted to Pompasse and utterly without humor. It still astonished Charlie that Pompasse could have painted such a shuttered, brooding soul in the translucent Tuscany light.
    As expected, Gia made no move toward her. She’d never disguised the fact that she despised Charlie, and Pompasse had actually encouraged her animosity. It suited his vanity to think that women fought over him, and it didn’t make any difference that Charlie had conceded the battle long ago.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” Gia demanded.
    She’d lost that dewy-eyed innocence, Charlie thought critically. But then, Pompasse stripped the innocence off most people.
    â€œI thought you knew I was coming,” she replied. “I’m the executor of Pompasse’s will. I’m supposed to oversee the disposal of his things….”
    â€œHe didn’t leave you anything!” Gia cried. “He told me he didn’t. He said you abandoned him, and you would have nothing.”
    â€œIt doesn’t really matter,” Charlie said in a soothing voice. “I’m just here to meet with the lawyers and insurance people and make sure things are in good hands. I owe Pompasse that much.”
    â€œYou owe him