Partner In Crime Read Free

lips and she knew she was about to lose it. That shook her. If it could happen to her when she was all alone in the gallery, how would she manage to maintain her composure tomorrow night at the opening-night party, when the place would be crowded with people, all of them—according to Dee—potential buyers? What would she do if some nice lady asked the artist who that little boy was, sitting on the porch with his dog? And what if someone else wanted to know about that nice old lady napping so peacefully in her rocking chair?
    Feeling the first subtle heart-pounding, breath-robbing symptoms of an oncoming panic attack, Rochelle bolted out of Castle Rock Gallery, slamming the door shut behind her. Anxiously she scanned the parking lot, afraid Dee and Warren might return before she could make good her escape. Her closed Camry had been sitting in full afternoon sunlight. Shivering and sweating at the same time, she sank, gasping for breath, into the cloth seat and welcomed the comforting warmth that surrounded her. She grasped the steering wheel and held on, hoping the heated plastic would help still her quaking hands. After a few long minutes, the panic attack subsided enough to allow her to start the car and drive away.
    Leaving Old Bisbee behind, she drove past the remains of Lavender Pit, around the traffic circle, and then southwest out of town toward Naco. When her case manager had asked her where she wanted to go—where she would care to settle—Rochelle had chosen the Bisbee area for two reasons: It was known as a place where artists were welcome. It was also surprisingly affordable.
    After only a day or two of prowling around, she had stumbled on the tiny border community of Naco, seven miles south of Bisbee proper. She had spotted the for sale sign on a crumbling but thick-walled adobe building that had, in previous incarnations, served as a customhouse, a whorehouse, and—most recently—a nightclub. She had purchased the place and had then remodeled it into part studio, part living quarters. That’s where Rochelle headed now—home to Naco.
    Mexico’s towering San José Mountain loomed in solitary majesty over the valley floor below. Behind it arched a cloudless blue sky. The summer rains had barely materialized that year, leaving all of Arizona brittle and dry. Naco was no exception. Turning off the short and poorly paved main drag, Rochelle entered a dusty dirt alleyway that ran parallel to the paved street. She parked in the makeshift carport that had been tacked on to the back of the building. Bullet holes from the Mexican Revolution still scored some of the adobe bricks that passing time had denuded of countless layers of stucco.
    Once out of the car, she hurried to the studio’s back entrance. Unlocking the dead bolt, she hurried inside and punched in the code on her alarm keypad. The system had been installed by the previous tenant. In the interest of saving money, she had kept the existing equipment, merely reactivating it and changing the code. Having a security system made her feel safe and allowed her to sleep easier at night.
    The interior of the building consisted of two rooms—a bathroom dominated by an old-fashioned claw-footed tub and a large open space that Rochelle had divided into work, sleep, and eating areas by the strategic placement of a series of rustic used-wood screens. Eating, sleeping, and working in that one huge, high-ceilinged room suited her simple needs. In the months since she had moved here from Washington State, while waiting for the other shoe to drop, she had buried herself in her work, toiling at her easel almost around the clock, stopping only when exhaustion finally overwhelmed her now-chronic insomnia. Eating, too, had taken a backseat to feverish work.
    A skylight in the middle of the ceiling suffused the white walls and the broad planks of the wooden floor with the soft pink glow of late-afternoon light, but with all the paintings hauled off to Castle Rock Gallery,