Read Online Distant Obsession by Ciara Gold, Michael Davis - Free Book Online

and gave them the library’s number. “Can you wait to send it until late Sunday evening?”
    “How ‘bout early Monday morning?”
    “Before eight?”
    “I can do that.” Papers rustled on the other end. “Mrs. Randall, seriously, if you see the man, call immediately. He’s armed, dangerous, and he just might be hunting you this time.”
    The phone went dead, and Lilah stared at the blank screen for a full minute before slipping it into her pocket. She snorted her disbelief. What could a killer possibly want with her?
    She’d have to go in early Monday to make sure she  
    retrieved the photo well before the other employees arrived. A shiver ran the length of her spine. The detective’s phone call had stirred memories of that fateful night, thoughts and feelings she’d tried with little success to bury.
    A hit man had been seen in the vicinity of their brownstone, but that didn’t necessarily mean Ben had been killed by the man. On the other hand, the known killer’s presence was too coincidental to be ignored, and Ben’s hand had been in all sorts of under-the-table deals. One transaction gone bad was all it would take for someone to contract his death.
    She concentrated on the events of that evening, vaguely remembering the man who’d flown out the door, almost knocking her to the ground. Could he have been Ben’s murderer? Could he have been the hit man?
    What had he looked like? Lilah closed her eyes in frustration, unable to bring forth details. Irritated at her lack of memory, she sauntered back to her exhibition and threw another cautionary glance about to make sure the sailor remained absent.
    “There you are,” Rose Wentworth stated as she approached, her straw hat sitting crookedly on top her head. “Ready to finish packing?”
    “Oh goodness, I thought you’d already left.”
    “No, dear heart. I wouldn’t run out on you like that. I just needed a break. So – what’s left to do?” She surveyed the few leftover paintings, hands on generous hips.
    “Just need to slip these last three framed works into the boxes, dismantle the display units, and we’re done.”
    Rose picked up one of the paintings of the pilot and his boat. “I just love your work. I think he liked it also.”
    “What?”
    “The man in this piece. He was here. Stood in front of the work for almost half an hour. Who is he?”
    Lilah swallowed hard, not wanting to lie but not willing to tell her friend and mentor he was a complete stranger. “Someone who lives near my lake house.”
    She studied her favorite of the Jenny May paintings. Her sailor man had turned many an eye today. She smiled. When had she begun to think of him as her sailor man? But Lilah knew the answer. He’d become real the moment she’d bumped into the flesh and blood specimen.
    A wayward curl fell across her brow, and she pushed it aside. Somehow, some way, she needed to meet the man and not because Ashley had thrown the gauntlet with their old game of I spy . No, she owed the source of her artistic imagination an apology for encroaching on his personal space.
    Well, there was that, but the real truth? She wanted to meet her obsession. She craved finding out if there was more to her infatuation than pure idolization and an appreciation of the male form.
    Was her sailor and pilot a man worth getting to know?
    She threw her friend a skeptical frown but didn’t comment. Instead, she slipped the oil into its box and put it on the cart. Once they had them all stacked on the dolly, they took it to the trailer hitched on the back of her jeep.
    The show had resulted in only two sales this go around, but she couldn’t complain. At least she’d sold something, which made all the work of hanging and tearing down a viable proposition. And fun. She enjoyed meeting the various patrons who frequented the surrounding festivals. The weekend treat forced Lilah to be sociable and kept her from withering away in that self-imposed prison.
    “Thank you for