“It’s part of the job,” Holly said with a grin. “Can I bother you for some coffee, Rachel?”

“You got it,” I said, heading for the kitchen.

With two fresh cups down from the cupboard and new coffee brewing in the Keurig, I pondered the coincidence of Laura being killed after seeing something in Dalton’s painting that upset her so dramatically she had to storm from the Blackwells’ home.

After Laura left, we’d all returned to our meal. Then Charlotte and Brodie, the lovebirds, had left, and soon after that, Dalton. He’d probably thought there was no point in staying with three objects of his mockery gone. Besides, with her exit, Laura had become the subject du jour, and Dalton preferred a rapt audience focused solely on him.

Shasta, Isak, and Clay had left next, Shasta in Mary’s car. Clay had told Mary he and Isak were meeting with Dalton in his studio. As if that couldn’t have waited until tomorrow.

In little, compact Juniper Grove, every single one of them could have driven to Laura’s house, killed her, and made it back home in no time.

Coffee made, I passed cups all around, put another log on the fire, and then recapped the brunch, including the four items Mary had stuffed in my coat pocket and Laura’s angry exit.

“I don’t know why she left the table to have a look at the thing in the first place,” I finished. “Wait a minute! She was looking at the painting earlier in the day, before we sat down for brunch. James was talking to her, and she was scouring the painting with her eyes, like she was inspecting it. Why didn’t she explode then? Or why not at the Blackwells’ Christmas party? Isak said she saw it then, too—and even earlier than that. It’s crazy.”

“And she wouldn’t say why she was angry?” Holly asked.

“It was definitely the painting that upset her, but she didn’t point to anything specific,” I said. “She got up, went to the living room, and the next thing we knew she was shouting, ‘Unbelievable!’ A minute later she was out the door.”

“She was repulsed by the painting’s ugliness?” Julia offered. “Go ahead and make a face, Rachel, but I’ve seen Dalton Taylor’s so-called art. And what are these four things Mary put in your coat pocket?”

“I’ll get to that later. Where have you seen Dalton’s art?” I set my cup on the coffee table.

“Oh, somewhere in Fort Collins,” Julia said with an airy wave of her hand. “My nephew dragged me there. Three paintings, big as trucks and worse than wallpaper.”

“Did you happen to see the one that portrays me as a killer?”

“You?” Holly said with a laugh. “No. Wait.” She latched onto her long, dark ponytail. “Seriously?”

I retrieved my phone back from the kitchen and showed Holly the closeup of Dalton’s pompously titled Hidden Little Town Number 7. Then I enlarged the view. “See the name on the mailbox? The book title?”

“Oh my gosh, it is you,” Holly said, “and that’s Maureen Nicholson in the Andersons’ front yard. He has it down exactly. I remember that night.”

“You would, considering you were a suspect,” I said.

She scowled and gave the phone to Julia. “Why would he paint you like that?”

“My impression is he enjoys taking shots at people for the sheer pleasure of it. He likes watching them react, and the more angry or offended they are, the better. This so-called artwork is going to be displayed at Aspen Leaf, a new gallery in Fort Collins owned by Isak Karlsen and Clay Blackwell.”

“What fun, I must tell my nephew,” Julia deadpanned.

“But Taylor doesn’t even know you,” Holly said.

“He’s a nasty piece of work,” Julia said, handing back my phone. “Sue him. Sue him for every penny he’s got. You can’t let him treat you like that.”

Julia was short in stature but long on a sense of right and wrong—and not shy about putting miscreants in their place. Her “little old lady umbrella” wasn’t literal, but she wielded it with conviction.

“He’d love it if I sued,” I said. “I’m sure he got off on Laura’s reaction to his other painting.”

Now I navigated to the wide shot of the painting that had so disturbed Laura and held up my phone.

Holly bent forward. “Yeah, I don’t see anything.”

“It’s too small.” Setting my phone on the coffee table, I took up my cup. “I’ll download it to my computer later. Or upload it, whatever it is.”

“I kind of wish I’d been there,” Holly said. “To see Dalton Taylor, I mean. He sounds like a prize. He comes to the bakery about once a week, mostly for baguettes, and barely speaks to me.” Her expression turned pensive. “This is quite the mystery. What could Laura have seen in that painting?”

“Maybe she’s portrayed as a murderer in it,” Julia suggested.

“Whatever she saw, does it have anything to do with her death?” Holly asked. “If it doesn’t, we’re wasting our time.”

“No sense wondering.” I got to my feet. “Grab your coffees, and let’s go to my office.”

In my writing office on the second floor, I uploaded the painting photos from my phone and saved them to my computer while Holly and Julia pulled chairs up to my desk.

I found the one that had angered Laura, enlarged it on my monitor, and scrolled slowly, top to bottom.

Holly watched over my shoulder. “Go back to the middle. That’s it. Hold it.”

“What do you see?” I asked.

“There.” She pointed at a two-story purple house with white trim. “That’s the Lilac Lane Bed and Breakfast.”

“Yeah, it is,” I agreed. “Though he calls it Wisteria Road B&B and it’s not on Lilac Lane downtown. That looks like a country road.”

Julia drew closer. “There’s a couple kissing in the bushes at the side of the building.”

The couple were half visible and nondescript, defying identification. I shook my head. “They could be anyone.”

“Look at this.” Now Julia pointed to a barn-red two-story building. “That sign says Wyatt’s Bistro, but it doesn’t look anything like Wyatt’s.”

“Why would he call the building Wyatt’s then not paint Wyatt’s?” Holly asked.

Instantly I knew the answer. “To protect himself while telling the story he wants to tell or leveling the charge he wants to level. If he makes small changes, he can deny that his painting, his story, is based on real people and places. It might be inspired by reality, he can say, but it’s not reality, it’s art. Fiction, not history. He said that at the brunch. He can claim it’s not Wyatt’s because it’s not where the real Wyatt’s is or because it has another name or it’s a different color.”

Holly angled the monitor her way. “I’m looking for Holly’s Sweets. And if I find it, I’ll make very special baguettes for him next time he comes in.”

I settled back in my office chair and sipped my coffee, watching Holly scroll through the painting and replaying what I could recall of the conversation at the Blackwells’ table. The whole brunch I’d felt off kilter, as though Gilroy and I had been excluded from a joke everyone else was in on.

“All the people look flat,” Julia said. “Like in Egyptian paintings.”

“It’s the primitive style,” Holly said.

“Oh, it’s a style, is it?” Julia asked. “And here I was thinking it was a lack of skill.”

I stood and walked to the window. Gazing down on Finch Hill Road, some of the pieces began to fall into place. “Shasta asked if painters had to consider libel laws,” I began, turning back to Holly and Julia. “Then she asked Dalton about fact that was meant to look like fiction. Intended or hidden to look like fiction. She emphasized the word hidden.” I gestured at the monitor. “This painting is part of a series Dalton calls Hidden Little Town.”

“How many of those eyesores are there?” Julia asked.