As I turned toward the door, my line of vision swung past the living room.
My heart stopped.
“Professor Fisher?”
My hand was on the doorknob. Seconds passed. I don’t know how many. I didn’t turn the knob, didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. I just stared into the living room, across the Oriental rug, to a spot above the fireplace.
Delia Sanderson again: “Professor?”
Her voice was very far away.
I finally let go of the knob and moved into the living room, across the Oriental carpet, and stared up above the fireplace. Delia Sanderson followed me.
“Are you okay?”
No, I wasn’t okay. And I hadn’t been wrong. If I had questions before, they all ended now. No coincidence, no mistake, no doubt: Todd Sanderson was the man I saw marry Natalie six years ago.
I felt rather than saw Delia Sanderson standing next to me. “It moves me,” she said. “I can stand here for hours and find something new.”
I understood. There was the soft morning glow hitting the side, the pinkness that comes with the new day, the dark windows as though the cottage had once been warm but was now abandoned.
It was Natalie’s painting.
“Do you like it?” Delia Sanderson asked me.
“Yes,” I said. “I like it very much.”
Chapter 17
I sat on the couch. Delia Sanderson didn’t offer me coffee this time. She poured two fingers’ worth of Macallan. It was early and as we’ve already learned I am not much of a drinker, but I gratefully accepted it with a shaking hand.
“Do you want to tell me what this is about?” Delia Sanderson asked.
I wasn’t sure how to explain this without sounding insane, so I started with a question. “How did you get that painting?”
“Todd bought it.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Please,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Could you just tell me when and where he bought it?”
She looked up, thinking about it. “The where I don’t remember. But the when . . . it was our anniversary. Five, maybe six years ago.”
“It was six,” I said.
“Again with six,” she said. “I don’t understand any of this.”
I saw no reason to lie—and worse, I saw no way to say this in a way that would soften the blow. “I showed you a photograph of a sleeping woman, remember?”
“It was only two minutes ago.”
“Right. She painted that picture.”
Delia frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Her name is Natalie Avery. That was her in the photograph.”
“That . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. I thought you taught political science.”
“I do.”
“So are you some kind of art historian? Is that woman a Lanford alum too?”
“No, it’s not like that.” I looked back at that cottage on the hill. “I’m looking for her.”
“The artist?”
“Yes.”
She studied my face. “Is she missing?”
“I don’t know.”
Our eyes met. She didn’t nod, but she didn’t have to. “She means a great deal to you.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “Yes. I realize that this is making no sense.”
“It isn’t,” Delia Sanderson agreed. “But you believe that my husband knew something about her. That’s why you’re really here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Again I saw no reason to lie. “This will sound insane.”
She waited.
“Six years ago, I saw your husband marry Natalie Avery in a small chapel in Vermont.”
Delia Sanderson blinked twice. She rose from the couch and started to back away from me. “I think you better leave.”
“Please just listen to me.”
She closed her eyes, but, hey, you can’t close your ears. I talked fast. I explained about going to the wedding six years ago, about seeing Todd’s obituary, about coming to the funeral, about believing that maybe I was mistaken.
“You were mistaken,” she said when I finished. “You have to be.”
“So that painting. It’s a coincidence?”
She said nothing.
“Mrs. Sanderson?”
“What are you after?” she asked in a soft voice.
“I want to find her.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
She nodded. “Because you’re in love with her.”
“Yes.”
“Even though you saw her marry another man six years ago.”
I didn’t bother responding. The house was maddeningly quiet. We both turned and looked back at that cottage on the hill. I wanted it to change somehow. I wanted the sun to rise a little higher or to see a light on in one of the windows.
Delia Sanderson moved a few yards farther away from me and took out her phone.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I googled you yesterday. After you called me.”
“Okay.”
“I wanted to make sure that you were who you said you were.”
“Who else would I be?”
Delia Sanderson ignored my question. “There was a picture of you on the Lanford website. Before I opened the door, I checked through the peephole to make sure.”
“I’m not following.”
“Better to be safe than sorry, I figured. I worried that maybe whoever murdered my husband . . .”
I understood now. “Would come back for you?”
She shrugged.
“But you saw it was me.”
“Yes. So I let you in. But now I’m wondering. I mean, you came here under false pretenses. How do I know that you aren’t one of them?”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
