Read Online Patterns in the Sand by Sally Goldenbaum - Free Book Online Page A

morning.
     
     
Even though Aidan didn’t let anyone get too close to him, he and Ben had sailed together and Nell was always pleased when he showed up for Friday suppers. His knowledge of art was extraordinary, and Nell loved talking to him. He was a friend, plain and simple—and his loss was keenly felt.
     
     
She and Ben had relived Sunday night in their minds and conversation over and over. But it had happened so fast that Nell could barely remember the order of events. They had talked to Aidan not a half hour before she found his body in the garden.
     
     
And in that short span of time, a man’s life had ended.
     
     
Immediately after she discovered Aidan’s body, Ben had appeared in the garden, looking for her. He made a call and in minutes the emergency ambulance drove into the narrow alley beside the gallery. Together Ben and Nell filled in the necessary information, and the ambulance, slipping in and out of Canary Cove as surreptitiously as possible, took Aidan away.
     
     
Outside the Fishtail Gallery, Pete Halloran’s band had switched to hard rock and filled the night air with a pulsing beat. Art was admired and sold, and when the shop doors closed, fireworks exploded off Canary Cove and filled the simmering black sky. People danced and drank frosty beers. Gossip was shared. Lovers wandered down to the ocean’s rocky edge, bodies entwined.
     
     
Life went on.
     
     
And in a hospital morgue just a few miles away, quietly, without fireworks or fanfare, Aidan Peabody was pronounced dead.
     
     
“Aidan has no family we know of,” Nell said. “In the years I’ve known him, he’s never spoken of anyone.”
     
     
The sadness blanketed them, and around Coffee’s patio, hushed voices said that others were experiencing Aidan’s loss as well.
     
     
“So what will happen to his wonderful gallery and studio? That land that Aidan loved and protected,” Birdie said. “There’ll be more than a vulture or two picking away at it, I suspect.”
     
     
“Ben says there’s a will. They’re checking.”
     
     
“Sam talked to Aidan briefly Sunday afternoon,” Izzy said. “He stopped in to say hello since he hadn’t seen him for a while and knew he’d be too busy to talk that night. Aidan was in the back, going over a bunch of paperwork and seemed really distracted, but happy in an odd way, Sam thought.”
     
     
“Did Sam know why?”
     
     
Izzy shook her head. “He said something kind of cryptic—though at the time Sam just thought he was distracted because of the evening affair. But when Sam asked him how things were going in his life, he said they’d never been better. And he smiled at Sam in a way that made him think maybe there was someone new in his life—someone special. So Sam said, ‘What’s her name?’ Aidan just laughed and said Sam’d find out soon enough. Odd, huh?”
     
     
“Well, maybe not so odd,” Birdie said. “Women have always gravitated to Aidan, and once Rebecca Marks disappeared from the picture, I’m sure there were others waiting in line.”
     
     
“But Aidan wasn’t like that,” Nell said. “He seemed to move slowly when it came to allowing women into his life. Oh, sure, he’d talk to them, but he certainly didn’t jump into relationships. I think the only reason he paired up with Rebecca was because Rebecca insisted.”
     
     
Cass laughed. “And what Rebecca Marks wants, she usually gets.”
     
     
“Well, at least for a while,” Nell said. “But I wonder if Aidan could have meant something else when he talked to Sam.” But even Nell was at a loss as to what that something else could be.
     
     
A flash of red distracted Nell, and she looked over Izzy’s shoulder, toward the patio entrance.
     
     
“Look—there’s Willow. Poor thing, we’ve nearly abandoned her with all the happenings.” Nell stood and waved for her to join them.
     
     
At first Willow didn’t see them. She stood in the entrance of the coffee shop’s patio, nearly lost in the movement of people balancing trays of takeout