Widow - Anne Stuart [36]
“We’ll look for the goddamned paintings,” he said.
The church hadn’t changed much in the last five years. The early-morning sun cast a warm, rosy glow over the pale stone, and it sat there in the tangled underbrush, a simple country chapel with no airs or graces. Farmers and peasants had worshiped there for centuries—the upper classes had driven down into Geppi to attend the huge cathedral. Whenever practicing Catholics had joined their transient household, they, too, would drive down to Geppi, and Lauretta, Tomaso and Madame Antonella never missed Sunday mass.
But this was a different kind of church. One that belonged to the earth, to nature, to the sky pouring in from the open roof, to the smell of leaves and dirt and the warmth of the sun. And Charlie always used to think that if God wanted to hang out anywhere, he’d be close to the earth in a place like this, rather than in the stultified, incense-laden air of Our Lady of Geppi Cathedral.
She paused in the entryway. The wooden doors were long gone, leaving the building open to the elements and whatever wild animals happened to wander by. Maguire was just behind her, not even short of breath, and she realized with a start that she’d never come here with anyone. She’d always been alone.
Just as she would have preferred to be alone now. The church was her secret, sacred spot—she didn’t want to be sharing it with the interloper. Particularly one as disturbing to her equilibrium as Maguire was.
Maguire, with his usual sensitivity, simply walked past her into the interior. “Where do you think he might have hidden them?”
She had no choice but to follow. “I didn’t say he’d hidden them. He must have had some reason for removing them from the farmhouse, and this is a logical place to have put them.”
“I wouldn’t think so. It’s damp and exposed up here. Not the best place to keep oil paintings. Wouldn’t he be more likely to have kept them in the apartment in Florence? Or rented some kind of storage facility?”
“But that would have required getting help, and no one in the household has any idea what happened to the paintings. According to Lauretta, they just seemed to vanish one by one. Pompasse had to carry them someplace, and this is about as far as he could have managed.”
“Maybe. Who says Pompasse did it?”
“Because he would have raised holy hell if anyone else had tampered with his precious paintings,” she said. “It’s only logical.”
“Good point. But then, life isn’t always logical.”
“Tell me about it,” she muttered.
The sun was streaming through the open roof, and dust motes danced on the beams of light. Maguire had moved on ahead, and she saw that the hole in the center of the floor had caved in, making passage impossible. Except for the board that someone had placed across it, and Maguire was already navigating it with careless speed. He stopped at the other end, looking at her quizzically. “Are you coming? There’s no other way around it.”
“What about the back entrance? There used to be a door….”
“I’ve already poked around here and there’s no other way. Just rubble. You’ve got a choice, lady. Either walk the plank or go back to the farmhouse.”
“Walk the plank,” she repeated. She looked across the great gaping hole at him. In the sunlight he looked very much like a pirate, with his unshaven face and shaggy hair, his piercing eyes and rumpled clothing. No peg leg or eye patch or parrot on his shoulder, though. Maybe being a pirate was a state of mind.
“Are you afraid of heights?” he taunted her when she still hesitated. “You were scrambling up the hillside like a mountain goat—I wouldn’t think a steep drop would make you nervous.”
She was tired of arguing with him. She started across the plank, too fast, and it wobbled beneath her. For a moment she froze, terrified, only to have Maguire step onto the end, grab her and haul her to the other side.
He didn’t let go of her, not for a moment, and she was still too shaken from the experience to notice that his hands were on her. Touching