House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance) by Carolyn McSparren Page B

circumstances. This, however, was different. It was like watching a football coach plan a touchdown drive, or a pilot plot cross-winds so that he didn’t land in the sea, instead of on the deck of his carrier. Paul knew better than to break her concentration.
    She sat back against the wall and closed her eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself and began to swing her legs.
    Suddenly she straightened and opened her eyes. “Oh, my.”
    “What?”
    “Look, I may be wrong. He would have wanted easy access, right? He needed to stash stuff where he could take it out again. He was probably too drunk half the time to unscrew baseboards or build hidey-holes in the backs of his cupboards. Even his sketch pads are fairly large and unwieldy.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “I’ve a good mind to tell you to go outside while I look so I can say ‘ta-da’ like a magician if I’m right and not get your hopes up if I’m wrong.”
    “Not a chance.”
    “Okay.” She hopped off the counter. “Hand me that palette knife, will you?”
    He did.
    She moved to the space heater, raised her hand and whacked the stove pipe. Instead of the metallic ring that should have come from the pipe, Paul heard only a thunk.
    Ann turned around and bowed. “Ta-da. There is something in there. It may be rotten, it may have disintegrated, it may be the carcass of a possum long deceased, but something is definitely there.” She began to scrape the rust around the end cap with her palette knife. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
    He moved her out of the way, wrapped his handkerchief around the metal cap, put both hands around it and twisted. He felt a tiny movement and heard an even tinier metallic squeal.
    “Come on,” Ann said. She sounded excited.
    He planted his feet and twisted harder, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. He felt the cap give a centimeter or two, then without warning, it simply twisted loose. He wasn’t expecting it and nearly fell over the space heater. She grabbed his arm.
    Nothing had fallen out except a shower of soot. His lungs deflated.
    The stove pipe was broader than the diameter of a hand—six or seven inches—and ran straight up the wall for a good four feet before it made a right-angle turn to cut through the wall.
    Ann gave the pipe a couple of hard whacks with the palette knife. “Get rid of any varmints,” she said. Then she stuck her gloved hand up the pipe. “Damn!”
    “Nothing?”
    “No, there’s something. I can’t quite reach it.”
    “My arm’s longer than yours. Let me try.”
    She stepped aside.
    This time he managed to grasp the edge of whatever it was. At first he thought he wouldn’t be able to budge it, but it began to slide and suddenly fell to the floor at his feet.
    It was some sort of plastic mailing tube nearly as big as the pipe and almost as long. It was filthy and covered with cobwebs, but as far as he could see, it had escaped the teeth of rats and mice.
    Ann picked it up and took it to the counter under the skylight. A plastic cap had been plugged into the end of it. She grasped it with her fingernails, pulled it out and upended the tube. The tiniest edge of white paper showed. She grasped it carefully and began to pull. “I can feel sketch paper and what feels like watercolor paper. Maybe there are some canvases rolled up inside,” she said. “It seems perfectly preserved. Hand me a couple of those cans of turpentine. I need something heavy to set on the edges while we unroll it.”
    Paul leaned over her and held down one side as Ann gently rolled the paper out. The sheets inside were of differing textures and sizes. The one on the top was a charcoal drawing of a street scene in the rain. He recognized the Champs Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe. A standard subject for an art student in Paris.
    “Lovely,” breathed Ann. “Leave it flat. We shouldn’t roll it back up again. Don’t want to break any more fibers if we can help it.”
    Paul gently moved the single sheet of