frustration honing her voice to an edge. “He was innocent. But the evidence the police had seemed to point to his guilt.”
“What happened to Rafe was awful,” Claire said.
“It sucks,” Liz agreed. She stepped back and scowled at her work area. “So does my paint job. I’m sure there’s some technique to this, but all I know how to do is slop the stuff on and wait for it to dry.” She sent a look across her shoulder. “Al, why don’t you just pronounce me a failure? Then I’ll slink on home.”
Glad for change to a lighter subject, Allie stepped across the room to get a close-up view of Liz’s work.
“It looks fine to me,” Allie said. “But if you think your painting’s not up to par, I can transfer you to the scraping team. They’re starting on the outside of the house after lunch.”
Pursing her lips, Liz gave her work another considering look. Then she shook her head. “On second thought, I think I’m getting the hang of using this brush.”
Rafe braked his car in front of a small house that had paint peeling off it like dead skin. Sawhorses sat on the porch. Frowning, he rechecked the card the clerk at Silk & Secrets had jotted the address on to verify he was at the right place.
He was.
The clerk had told him Miss Fielding was spending the day painting in the Paseo District. Because this area of the city catered to emerging artists and trendy galleries, Rafe figured he’d find her in an art class, sketching some nude male model, which would have been right up the alley of the sexy party girl he’d known in college.
He climbed out of his car just as a beefy workman wearing a sweat-stained T-shirt, jeans and a tool belt lashed beneath his bulging belly lugged a ladder from around the side of the house. Not quite the male model he’d envisioned, Rafe thought as he headed across the yard.
Moments later, he followed the workman’s directions to the house’s back bedroom. The smell of fresh paint hung heavy in the air.
At the bedroom’s doorway he paused, taking in the lone woman working with her back to him. She was wearing an old, tattered pair of jeans with frayed hems. A rag stuck out of one of the back pockets. Her T-shirt looked as if it had once been beige but had been washed so often that it had faded to a soft cream. Her hair was stuffed up into a ball cap and her scuffed work boots were spattered with the same light blue paint she was rolling onto the wall.
“I’m looking for Allie Fielding.”
At the sound of his voice she jolted and did a fast, twisting about-face. The momentum of the turn had her fumbling the roller, dripping paint on the floor.
She glanced down, then looked back at him, her blue eyes glinting. “You scared me to death!”
For a moment, all Rafe could do was stare while Allie abandoned the roller to the paint tray, then jerked the rag from her back pocket. Muttering, she crouched and began swiping blots of paint off the wood floor.
In college, the money vibe had rippled off her like heat—the designer clothes, “in” shades and foreign cars so sleek they gave the impression they belonged in a cage. Even yesterday she’d looked like the millions of dollars she was worth.
The woman presently crouched at his feet looked like she’d just come from Goodwill. And because her face was bare of concealing makeup, the bruise on her temple was the deep purple color of a plum gone bad.
The unexpected quake of empathy that shot through him settled like a stone in Rafe’s gut. This particular woman had stirred enough emotion inside him for one lifetime.
“I didn’t expect to find you doing manual labor,” he said, the words sounding harder than he’d intended.
She flicked him a look from beneath her blond lashes. “I didn’t expect to have someone scare me half to death for the second time this week.”
Rafe’s imagination conjured up the dark form that had rushed out at her from behind the condo’s kitchen door minutes after she’d stumbled on Mercedes McKenzie’s body. He couldn’t blame her for still feeling spooked.
“I’ll make a point not to do that again,” he said evenly.
“Appreciate it.” She rose, tossed the rag on an area of the scarred wooden floor where newspapers had been spread.
Up close, he could see the ocean-blue facets of her eyes. Today, she smelled like soap. Just soap. A sharp kick of awareness left his solar plexus smarting.
Her eyes flicked over his starched shirt and slacks. “Something tells me you’re not here to strap on a tool belt and get to work.”
“No.” He knew he should just tell her why he’d shown up, get business over with, then leave. Maybe then he could get rid of the hard, hot ball of emotion in his gut. But curiosity pushed at him. “What’s going on with this house?”
“It’s owned by a foundation. We’re making it livable for a woman who got up the courage to leave her sorry husband. He thought she and their kids were his personal punching bags. All the labor is done by volunteers.”
Rafe glanced around. “You doing the painting by yourself?”
“Two of my girlfriends are helping today. They left to pick up lunch for everyone.”
“The foundation that owns this house,” he said just as the high-pitched wail of power tools drifted in through the hallway. “Is it the same one that’s sponsoring tonight’s silent auction?”
“Yes.” Using a finger, Allie inched the brim of her baseball cap higher. “Why?”
“Hank Bishop’s wife and son may show up there. I need to talk to them.”
Allie’s eyes widened. “Are they suspects in Mercedes’s murder?”
“At this point, everyone is.”
“Can’t you just go and see them?”
“I tried. They’re both angry at my client over his affair and they have little interest in helping him right now.”
“Do you blame them?”
“No. That doesn’t change the fact that I need to talk to them. I understand I can’t get into the auction unless my name is on the guest list at the door.”
“That’s right.”
“I’ve been told you have a connection to the foundation.”
“And you want me to get your name on the guest list so you can get in and corner Ellen and Will Bishop.”
“Yes.”
“The silent auction is a black-tie affair, Rafe. A lot of prominent people will be there.”
In a fingersnap, cold hard tips of the anger he could never quite vanquish clawed through. “And an ex-con doesn’t fit in with that crowd,” he shot back.
She kept her gaze on his as color flooded into her cheeks. “That’s not what I meant. Your conviction was overturned—”
“You think that fixed things?” He took an aggressive step toward her. “Want to take a look at my résumé? There’s a two-year gap with nothing filled in. Makes it hard to explain when a prospective employer asks what I was up to during that time.”
She flexed her fingers, then curled them into her palms. “I told you I was sorry. I’ll tell you again—”
“I didn’t come here for a damn apology.”
Stepping away, he pulled back on every level. He stared out the open window while the thud of hammers, the buzz of saws, the whir of drills coming from other areas of the house filled the air. Dammit, why the hell had he come here? He should have known that seeing Allie Fielding again would shove all the bitter memories to the surface.
“Rafe, if I