Die in Plain Sight Read Online Free PDF

one in line for the butt-kicking.”
    “Hon, they aren’t that valuable.”
    “We’ll leave that for Susa Donovan to decide. As far as I’m concerned, my grandfather is the undiscovered genius of California plein air painters.”
    Shaking her head, Shayla descended the stairs in time to catch a painting that wanted to cartwheel off into the great unknown. “Which one is this?”
    “Don’t know.” Lacey blew a chestnut curl out of her eyes.
    “I’d hate to think I rescued that wretched murder painting.”
    “Then don’t.”
    “Rescue it?”
    “Think.”
    Shayla started to say something, then shook her head. Following her friend’s unexpected turns of thought was more than Shayla was up to right now. Between packing for her next buying trip to the Andes and trying to catch up on inventory, she had a headache big enough to share with a stadium.
    “Right,” she said. “I won’t think.”
    Lacey propped the wrapped paintings against a stack of unframed finished canvases—hers, not her grandfather’s. When the paintings started to slide, she stopped them with one of the big fire extinguishers she kept in her upstairs apartment.
    The shop door chimed cheerfully.
    “My public calls,” Shayla said, heading for the stairway.
    “I’ll take it,” Lacey said, talking as she raced out and down the stairs. “You deserve a break after the inventory stuff. There’s some fresh orange juice in the fridge. Or beer, since it’s been that kind of day already.”
    She was going so fast that most of what she said was overheard by Ian Lapstrake, who was browsing downstairs. He voted in silent sympathy for the beer and that kind of day. Then he went back to cruising the shop for his own personal idea of treasure: Western movie posters from the time before southern California and the Southwest was paved over, smogged out, and generally screwed up by growth.
    That was why he’d left L.A. early and cut over to Pacific Coast Highway before going to the John Wayne airport to pick up Susa Donovan—if you looked fast and not too hard, there were glimpses of the old California just off the coast highway. That was how he’d discovered Lost Treasures Found, a twenties bungalow wedged between a fast-food business and a con artist selling control of your own karma through the shop called Cosmic Energy. As far as Ian was concerned, it was earthly bullshit. But then, people had accused him of being a cynic in the past.
    Lacey spotted her new customer before she reached the bottom of the stairs. Uneasiness flared in her. Though his back was to her, it was clear that he was at least six feet tall, with shoulders wide enough to fill out his black denim jacket. She was suddenly glad that Shayla was upstairs. Most of her customers were women alone or dragging a bored and boring husband along. Whatever this man was, he wasn’t boring.
    “May I help you?” she asked professionally.
    “Just looking for old movie posters,” Ian said, turning around.
    At first glance the girl standing a cautious five yards from him didn’t look old enough to work. A second glance told him what he already knew—looks were deceiving. Beneath the mop of loose curls were measuring cinnamon-brown eyes and a mouth that waited to see whether it would smile. Not a girl at all. A woman dressed in paint-spattered shirt and jeans and totally unaware of it.
    “Old movies,” she said. “Film noir?”
    “Westerns.”
    “I should have guessed.”
    He looked at his feet. “How? No cowboy boots.”
    “Denim jacket.”
    He smiled and decided not to tell her it was great cover for his shoulder holster. “Dang, I keep forgetting about that.”
    Lacey absorbed the man’s slow smile and wondered why she’d ever been nervous. The smile she gave him in return was more appreciative than professional. Automatically she walked closer.
    “Most of the people around here still worship at the altar of film noir,” she said, waving to the three framed posters that hung