Having moved to the ranch as a bride just a month earlier, to the home where Max had lived with his first wife until she died, Charlie had been reluctant at first to suggest any changes in the house. But when she did broach the subject, Max had been all for it. This home was their retreat, their safe place, their serene and private world. The new addition would make that haven even more perfect, a lovely new space in which they were together, and in which she could do her own work while Max was off locking up the bad guys.
Max's wife, Millie, had been a cop. She hadn't needed space to work at home, other than the small study that she and Max had shared. That marriage had been nearly perfect. Max's friends, Clyde in particular, had thought Max would never marry again.
Charlie had no notion that she could take Millie's place, nor would she want to. She had married not only Max, she had married the good and lasting presence of Millie, the woman who so deeply loved him and had so strongly shaped his life. That was not a matter over which to be jealous, she wanted only to treasure Max as Millie had done and to love him.
The house had been Max and Millie's retreat. Now it was Max and hers; she thought the change would be positive and healthy.
There was Ryan's red truck, right on time. Charlie watched the big Chevy king cab, with its built-in toolboxes and ladder rack, approach the house between the pasture fences, watched Ryan park and swing out of it carrying a roll of blueprints. The big silver weimaraner that rode beside her did not leave the cab until Ryan spoke to him; then he leaped out, all wags and smiles, dancing around her. Laughing, Charlie watched Ryan cross the yard to the pasture gate, and carefully open it. Pushing the two resident dogs back inside, she released the weimaraner; the three took off racing the pasture wild with joy, secure behind the dog-proofed pasture fence.
This small ranch was Charlie's first real home since she'd left her childhood home. She'd lived in rented rooms while she was in art school, then in several small San Francisco apartments nattily furnished with a folding cot, a scarred old dinette set, and the cardboard grocery boxes that served in place of shelves and dressers.
At the pasture fence, Ryan stood a moment watching the three dogs race in circles, then turned toward the house. Coming in, she gave Charlie a hug and spread the blueprints out on the table, weighting the corners with the sugar bowl and cream pitcher, and with her purse. Ryan's dark hair was freshly cut, a flyaway bob curling around her face. Her green eyes were startling beneath her black lashes, her vivid coloring complemented perfectly by a green sweatshirt that she wore over faded jeans. Ryan's mix of Irish and Latino blood, from her Flannery father and her Garza mother, had produced great beauty, great strength, and vivaciousness.
"Anything more on the dead waiter?" Ryan asked, sitting down. "I haven't talked to Dallas."
"Nothing," Charlie said. "Strange that Max hasn't been able to reach Lucinda and Pedric, that they haven't answered their cell phone messages."
"That is strange. And what about James Quinn?"
Charlie had no hesitation in relaying information to Ryan. Max would do the same, as would Ryan's uncle, Dallas. "There were no prints at all on the handle of the gas valve," Charlie said. "The gas starter in the fireplace had been full open, apparently for some hours. When Sacks and Hendricks first arrived on the scene, the doors and windows were all locked. When Wilma and Kate and I got there, Sacks was very carefully working on the lock, and we were all afraid the place would blow. Just one spark… Well, when they got inside and opened up, when they were able to go through, there was no sign of forced entry."
Ryan shook her head. "What a pity, if it was suicide-and more the pity if it wasn't. This will keep Dallas and Max busy for a while." She turned the blueprints to a page of elevations, and laid it out facing Charlie.
The new addition soared to a raftered peak with long expanses of glass looking down the hills to the sea and, at the back of the room flanking the stone fireplace, plain white walls for Charlie's framed drawings and prints. Before they came down on a final design, Charlie and Max and Ryan had spent nearly an hour standing on ladders in the front yard seeing just how high the room should be raised, how it should be oriented for the best view.
From the new raised floor level they would see the village rooftops to the west with the wild rocky coast beyond. The old living room would become the new master bedroom, retaining the original stone fireplace and bay windows. Ryan would cut a new door to the existing master bath and closet, and those would need no change. The old master bedroom would become Max's larger and more comfortable study. Ryan was, Charlie had learned, very skilled at saving what could be saved, but running free with what should be added.
Charlie greatly admired Ryan Flannery. Ryan had done something practical and exciting with her art degree, while Charlie's own art education had certainly gone awry, or had seemed to until recently. Her attempt at a commercial art career had been a royal bust, had at last sent her scurrying to her only living relative, to her aunt Wilma-for moral support and for a roof over her head. She had been living with Wilma when she started Charlie's Fix-it, Clean-it service. Not until much later did she have this surprising success with her animal drawings. Animals had always been her one great pleasure in the arts.
They sat studying the elevations, looking for any undiscovered problems. As Charlie watched Ryan red-pencil in a change they had agreed on, she could see, through the bay window, the three dogs playing in the pasture. The two young Great Dane mixes still acted like puppies. The presence of Ryan's beautiful weimaraner with his devilish cleverness made the two mutts act far more juvenile. Rock was smarter than they were, a year older and far quicker, a handsome canine celebrity who had come to Ryan quite by accident-or maybe by providence, Charlie thought, if you believed in such matters. The dogs were chasing one another and chasing the sorrel mare, when she agreed to run from them.
Charlie studied the plans again but could find nothing to be improved upon. In her view the design was perfect, and she could hardly wait to get started. She had risen to fetch the coffeepot, glancing out at the lane, when someone on a bike turned in, heading for the house.
"Dillon," Charlie said with curiosity. "She hasn't been here in a while."
"Surprised she's here now, after Max scolded her this morning at the Quinn place. You heard about that?"
Charlie nodded. "Max wasn't happy with her." Charlie had stopped by the station after she showed Kate the apartment. Max had been glum and silent, hadn't much wanted to talk about Dillon. Charlie watched the pretty redhead bike slowly up the lane, hardly peddling. Even at a distance, Dillon looked sour and unhappy.
"Sullen," Ryan said. "I'm sorry to see that. Consuela Benton is not a good influence."
Dillon walked her bike to the porch and leaned it against the porch rail. Slowly she slumped up the steps. Dillon was tall for fourteen. Her red hair was piled atop her head, tied with a purple scarf. Her tan windbreaker was tied by its sleeves around her waist, hiding her bare belly under the very tight T-shirt. She mounted the steps with a belligerent swagger. Charlie rose to let her in. No one used the front door. With the new addition, that, too, would change. Back and front entries would become one, with a large mud room for coats and dirty boots. Entering the kitchen, Dillon crossed in silence to Charlie's side and plunked down at the table, staring at the blueprints that drooped over the edges. "What's all this?"
"Plans for the new addition," Charlie said. "You want coffee? Or make yourself some cocoa."