Free Last Day by Luanne Rice

pictures of the tall ships were actually spies snapping shots of the nuclear subs.” Then, “You have a brother?”
    “Yes, Tom,” Reid said, glad for the chance to tell her.
    “Older or younger?”
    “He’s older,” Reid said.
    “Like me,” Kate said. “Are you close?”
    “We are,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Were you and Beth?”
    “Our whole lives. We thought we had such a happy childhood till . . .” She trailed off.
    “You lost both your parents,” he said.
    “In different ways,” she said. “Our mother died, yes. Beth stayed in touch with my father after he went to prison. I never saw him again. Or took his calls.”
    “You know, my brother found the paintings,” he said.
    She stopped to face him.
    He nodded. “Tom was on the Coast Guard ship that boarded Rembrandt . The Andersons had their running lights off—trying to slip offshore without being seen. Tom was on deck and spotted them. And when he went aboard, he found the artwork stashed in a hidden compartment. The first painting he pulled out was Moonlight .”
    “Please thank him for me,” she said, her voice catching. “Now it’s gone again. And so is my sister.”
    They walked in silence while Popcorn explored the oily pilings of a ruined dock. A tugboat chuffed past. The sound of I-95 traffic crossing the Gold Star Memorial Bridge, although half a mile away, was unending white noise, but Reid and Kate were close enough for him to hear her phone buzz. She reached into her pocket, looked at the screen, and put it back.
    “Waiting for a call?” he asked.
    “Yeah,” she said. “A close friend. I want to be the one to tell her about Beth.”
    “That wasn’t the friend?”
    She shook her head. “People I haven’t talked to in ages are coming out of the woodwork. They’ve heard; they’re leaving messages. I don’t want to speak to them.”
    “No,” he said. “I get it.”
    “I hope I can help Sam,” Kate said, “half as well as my grandmother helped me.”
    “Will she live with you?” he asked.
    Kate glanced up, surprise on her face. “No, with Pete, of course.”
    “Oh, right,” Reid said.
    “Why wouldn’t she?” Kate asked, stopping.
    Reid didn’t answer. He stared into her green eyes, trying to read them. And he felt her trying to read him back. He had made up his mind about Pete right away and was doing his best to fight his bias. Was Kate’s reaction a sign that she trusted Pete enough to want Sam to stay with him?
    “You think he did it?” she asked.
    “What did you mean, early today, when you said you could have stopped it from happening?” he asked, avoiding her question.
    “Now I’m a suspect?” she asked. “Me and Pete together? You’re an idiot.” She started to walk away.
    Reid took a deep breath and knew he had to be careful with what he said. He didn’t want to lead her. “Tell me what you mean,” he said.
    “I wouldn’t go to the corner with Pete. The only reason I even speak to him is for Beth and Sam’s sake.”
    “Earlier you said you hate him. Can you explain why?”
    “You’re the detective. Haven’t you uncovered all the dirt?”
    “The investigation is just beginning,” he said.
    “Well then, start with Nicola Corliss,” Kate said.
    “Okay,” Reid said, keeping his voice calm. He didn’t want to let on how much he already knew, had known all along, and he needed to listen as dispassionately as possible to everything she had to say.
    “She is—or was, till Beth fired her—a gallery employee. An assistant curator. Beth and I hired her straight out of grad school at Bard. She wrote her master’s thesis on Childe Hassam’s flag paintings, but her great artist love is, you guessed it, Benjamin Morrison. Those are the reasons we chose her from among the other applicants.”
    “Why did Beth fire her?”
    “Because even more than Morrison, she loved Pete. And he loved—or loves—her right back. My sister is so smart and wonderful, but shere-created just about