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She came up with ideas; he obliged to the best of his ability. Like these pressboard saloon doors that she wanted him to paint brilliant orange.
The old Adam Snapp would have painted books on one side; after all, this was to be a used bookstore. Then he would have added real covers and used shellacked fanned-out pages for a 3D effect. He’d also have painted a caricature of Yolanda, her nose in a book, as it always was, on the other panel. He’d have glued a pair of glasses above that perfect little nose. She, all female with slim lines and slight curves, was a painter’s dream. She often displayed a Mona Lisa smile. Her hair, black and straight, would look simple on anyone else: normal, everyday. On her it accentuated big, smiling black eyes filled with determination.
Her lips had always been a challenge for him to capture. For some reason, whenever he’d painted her—and he had many times back when they’d both been teenagers working for the local animal habitat, BAA—her lips had come out bigger than they really were and always seemed pursed. She’d gotten mad at him on a few occasions, accusing him of making it look as if she’d just swallowed a pickle.
Yes, he could picture exactly how he wanted the saloon door to look. He clenched his fingers. Desire rose, fell, disappeared. It didn’t matter what his heart told him to do. Right now, when his fingers grasped the pencil so he could start to seriously sketch, nothing happened.
Nothing.
So it was best to just tighten the screws, adjust the hinges, check to make sure the doors were level, paint the stupid panels Kool-Aid orange and be done with it.
“Ahem.”
Adam looked down. She hadn’t used to be able to sneak up on him. He was really off his game. But then, in the weeks he’d been working for her, she’d been too involved with the plumbers and electricians to pay much attention to him. Almost gave him a complex.
“What was that noise? And did anyone come past you?” Yolanda demanded, all righteous indignation. When he didn’t answer fast enough, she added, “There was an elderly woman over in history and nonfiction. I turned around, and she was gone. I’ve searched the nooks and crannies of the first floor book areas. I even went upstairs to my private suite.”
Adam hadn’t been up there yet. Yolanda’s priority was the bookstore. As a result, he had a to-do list in his back pocket that would keep him busy for a year. He’d make, he figured, not even half of what he’d made the last five years painting murals, and he’d work harder. It would take longer to get it done.
Up until a couple of months ago, his life had been about creating art, murals specifically. Most of his creations had been done outdoors. Now he was indoors, hemmed in, without space to call his own. To Yolanda, creativity, when it came to her old house, was categorized as either “That’s not practical” or “Not in the budget.”
Not that Adam had much creativity himself these days. He wasn’t sure where his muse had gone off to and doubted it would come back. And right now he was too worried about his dad and his family to go after it. “Adam,” Yolanda said impatiently. “Did someone go by you?”
“No, I haven’t seen anyone.” He watched as she peered past him, as if someone really could have sidled by and taken up residence in her tiny office. “The front door was open when I got here. What about the back?”
“I thought they were both locked,” Yolanda stated.
“You should start checking.” The last five years Adam had lived in a few off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods. He’d learned to value a good door lock. When she finally focused on him again, he said, “I’m glad you’re here. Check this out.”
He opened and closed the doors a few times. “Hear anything?”
“No, but I heard something earlier. What did you drop?”
Okay, so she didn’t appreciate his handyman skills. “I tripped over the toolbox.”
She looked down. “I can tell by the assortment of tools spread out on the floor that today is ‘Get rid of loose hinges’ day.”
“Hey, I can’t believe Hallmark hasn’t thought of creating such a holiday!”
Yolanda didn’t laugh. In all the years he’d known her, she’d never responded to his humor. She’d been the straight A student who kept trying to tell him, “You should try harder,” while he’d been the class clown responding with a “Maybe later...”
And she’d been right. When later came, he’d been ill prepared. He’d had the opportunity of a lifetime the last few years and because he’d not had good business sense, he’d made one mistake after another.
Yolanda continued, “I think I’ll use that shade of orange on the upstairs baseboards. It will add a little character to the place.”
Adam shook his head. He might make poor business decisions and have no clue when it came to women, but he knew that would be wrong. This house was almost three thousand square feet of historical space and sculpture. The shade of orange she wanted hadn’t been invented when this house was built.
“Of course,” she continued, “I shouldn’t even be thinking of the upstairs until after the bookstore is a success.”
It would be a success, Adam thought, because she’d poured her heart into it. Per Yolanda’s orders, he’d painted every room—the foyer, study, parlor, dining room, bedroom, bathroom, enclosed breezeway and kitchen—a different vibrant color. The grand lady, a Queen Anne who probably missed her flowered wallpaper, had never shined so bright. Next he’d be working on the second-floor bedrooms. When he finished that she wanted him to turn the upstairs of the house’s two-story garage, which used to be a carriage house, into an apartment she could rent out.
He might not agree with her color choices, but he appreciated the work to take his mind off his mistakes and his family’s problems.
“This old dame doesn’t need any help with character. She’s loaded with it.”
“You did a great job,” she admitted. “But I’m more concerned about the woman I just spoke to. Are you sure no one went past you?”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“She was old, really old, and tiny. She had gray hair with a hint of blond left. The cut was straight and close to the scalp. Her eyes were blue. She wore tiny pearl earrings and a matching necklace. Her face was as wrinkled as any I’ve seen, and she was smoking a cigarette.”
“I don’t smell anything.”
Yolanda frowned. “I don’t smell it anymore, either. That’s so odd. Come, help me look. Maybe you can figure out how she just vanished.”
Adam followed her into what used to be the living room. Now it housed popular fiction. From there he passed her, meandering through horror, true crime and mystery before finally stopping in the history section.
“No. No lingering smell of cigarette smoke. Are you sure she had a cigarette?”
“I caught her right here, in this area. I didn’t recognize her, and when you made such a noise—” Yolanda glared at his tool belt as if it were somehow to blame “—she somehow got past me. I’ve never seen her before, and I didn’t get her name. I was hoping she came by you so you could fill me in.”
“What did she want?”
“She wanted to know if I had any old books about Scorpion Ridge.”
“Sounds harmless enough,” Adam said, “except for the cigarette.”
“I used to catch people trying to sneak cigarettes at BAA, but they always did it in some out-of-the-way corner. This woman didn’t care that she was breaking the law,” Yolanda said.
Adam had also been vigilant about smokers during his tenure at Bridget’s Animal Adventure. He’d taken the infraction a bit personally, as his autistic brother was bothered by smoke, so much so that he often demanded to be taken home if he smelled it, no matter how important the event the family was attending.
“And,” Yolanda continued, “the expression on her face wasn’t harmless. She stood in the middle of the room as if she had a right to be here.”
“At BAA we called that attitude entitlement.”
“Yes,” Yolanda agreed. “That’s exactly the attitude she personified.”
Adam glanced around the room loaded with history books. It even smelled old. This was not a place he would normally spend much time. His taste bent more toward true crime and horror.
“You really think people will buy old school history books?” he asked.
“I used to.”
“Well, you’ve always been a bit strange.”
Her color deepened, exactly the response he’d hoped for. He bent down, picking up a book that had fallen to the ground. “Soiled Doves of the Desert,” he read. “I’m thinking these aren’t the kind of doves that squawked.”
Yolanda took the book from his hand and placed it on the shelf. “I’m being serious. Something about her wasn’t right.”
“Well, she didn’t come past me. I’d have seen her.”
Annoyed, Yolanda said, “Which means she went out the back door, which is definitely not a public exit. And just how did she know where it was?”
“Are you talking to me or just muttering to yourself?”
“Both,” Yolanda retorted. She patted a bookshelf, moved a book then looked at the shelves below and above. “Oh, I almost forgot. She flicked the ashes...”
“What?”
Yolanda had gone pale. Not a color he liked seeing on her. She whispered a response, “She used my favorite yellow coffee cup as an ashtray. But the cup is gone.”
She kept searching the shelves and then went to the end table and chair in the corner of the room.
“You think she swiped your cup?” Adam asked.
“I can’t imagine why. This makes no sense.”
“You’re probably overreacting.”
“I don’t overreact, ever.”
That was true. She was always in control, always did what she was supposed to do. Yolanda had once been in a school play, and the stage had collapsed under her feet. She’d kept saying her lines even as the actor playing the cowardly lion helped her out of the hole.
“You had to have seen her.”
You have to pay more attention...
He’d heard that a million times growing up, mostly from his father. They’d never seen eye to eye on anything, particularly after he’d dropped out of high school, and Adam had been desperate to leave Scorpion Ridge as soon as possible. Now he was back.
“No one walked past me. She must have gone out the back.”
“But—”
He ruffled her hair, knowing it would distract her. “It doesn’t look like anything’s missing. It was probably some tourist who wandered in, realized she’d made a mistake and then wandered out.”
Yolanda nodded, though she didn’t appear convinced.
Adam checked his cell phone and turned to leave. “I’ve got to be at the Tae Kwon Do studio in thirty minutes, and I still need to finish the door.”
“Tell your brother I said hi.”
“I will.”
Snapp’s Studio, his family’s business, had employed the whole Snapp family for years—except for Adam. He was there now, though, once again working for his father. Only this time if his father made a request, Adam jumped to it, trying to make his dad’s life easier.
Tonight Adam was scheduled to give a lesson to a beginner class. His twin brother, Andy, would be there stacking mats, folding towels, offering advice from the side of the room. If the noise and chaos got overwhelming for Andy, he’d go into the back office away from everyone. But usually it was where Andy felt most comfortable.
Right after his brother was diagnosed with autism, a well-meaning counselor had handed Adam’s mother a pamphlet and recommended a group home for him.
Both parents decided that was not in Andy’s future.
Adam respected all they’d done to keep that from happening. Snapp’s Studio was the result of taking what Andy loved most and making it his life’s work.
Yolanda followed Adam. “You know, the old woman didn’t give me her name but she did say something about a relative. Have you heard of Chester Ventimiglia?”
“His name is on the courthouse wall. On a plaque.”
“Trust you to remember that. If an historic politician is commemorated anywhere in an artful way, you’ll know. Are you sure you don’t mean Richard? Wasn’t he a judge?”
Adam bent down, opened his toolbox and soon cleared the floor.
He was sure. Both Chester and Richard’s names were written on the courthouse, but they were two different engravings.
All his life his father had been telling Adam to pay attention to what went on around him, not to lose himself in whatever project he was engaged in.
And he’d been right.
Adam Snapp had become a successful artist, but he hadn’t been able to balance art and life. His art had become his sole focus.
All the while, the rest of his life had fallen apart.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a708273f-43c2-5167-b967-0c6379d46832)
IF ANYONE HAD told Yolanda that Adam would become Mr. Fix-it, she’d have laughed. He was a dreamer, an artist and a wanderer. His family and friends had always worried about him, sometimes even more than they had about his brother. But Yolanda had to admit, Adam always seemed to land on his feet, albeit wobbly.
After dropping out of high school, he’d managed to become a pseudo artist-in-residence, surviving by doing caricatures during the weekend and then masterminding most of the artwork—mostly murals—at Bridget’s Animal Adventure. Back then, a whole five years ago, he’d painted during the day and during the night, acted as a security guard in exchange for room and board.
Yolanda’s mom had called him a loser. But Trina Sanchez had thought only a man wearing a suit and tie and bringing home a four-digit-a-week paycheck was to be admired.
Yolanda had never met that man. Her memories of her own father were shadowy. She remembered that he was tall and that his chin and cheeks had always felt rough to her touch. He’d smelled of ink, as he’d worked in Phoenix at some type of print shop. He’d died when Yolanda was four. Her mother hadn’t talked about him much, simply saying he should have had more drive.
Yolanda had long suspected that no one possessed enough drive to please her mother. Yolanda certainly hadn’t.
When it came to Adam Snapp, Yolanda couldn’t get a handle on whether he had drive or not. He was passionate about his art, and never seemed to worry about anything else, like rent or food. In his teens and early twenties, he’d been content to live in an old house, more a caretaker’s cabin, on BAA’s property. Existing day to day, almost like a hippie. Yolanda had almost envied him this worry-free existence.
Unfortunately, there’d been only so many walls to paint in Scorpion Ridge, which was just a tiny spot on the Arizona map. Fortunately, his talent had gotten noticed, big-time, and he’d left Scorpion Ridge with a suitcase of clothes and four suitcases of art supplies. At least that’s what Yolanda’s grandmother had heard from Mr. Teasdale, who’d heard it from... Well, the small-town grapevine had many roots.
What Yolanda remembered most was that when Adam left Scorpion Ridge, her mom had shaken her head and given him six months before he came back, head hanging, to move in with his parents.
Yolanda had refrained from mentioning that she still lived with her parent. And, although Yolanda nodded in agreement with her mother’s prediction, secretly she believed Adam would do something great with his talent. She respected that he had the motivation to follow his muse to other places. She’d been so busy making sure she got straight A’s that she’d not had time to develop a muse. Wasn’t sure she knew how.
And, though she’d never admit it, especially to him, she thought Adam was quite good.
To everyone’s surprise, two years after Adam left, an article in the Scorpion Ridge Gazette reported that he’d won a national competition and was becoming fairly well-known, with patrons willing to pay in the five digits for his art.
Even in black-and-white, the winning mural featured in the newspaper was riveting. It was as if Adam had only been practicing when he’d painted all the murals at BAA. His real talent lay elsewhere.
And now he worked for her, removing hinges.
