Circumstances compelled Annie to take Otto with her to her first big San Francisco auction almost three months after rolling into town. She would have left him at her gallery, up and running for six weeks now, but the woman she'd hired to cover for her today was afraid of any and all rottweilers. She would have left him at her apartment, but her landlord, who didn't have "rottweiler" in mind when he'd agreed to let Annie have a dog, was coming over to fix what passed for heat in San Francisco, and he was still afraid of Otto.

Back in Maine, no one was afraid of Otto. The whole town knew he was a big galoot.

Annie parked in the shade on the wide, picturesque Pacific Heights street and left the windows of her station wagon cracked and Otto sprawled in back. She'd let down the backseat not for his sake but because of the auction. She had one item to buy, and she meant to buy it.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," she told Otto, as if he understood.

It was a dreary day even by San Francisco dreary-day standards. Low clouds, intermittent drizzle, lapping fog, temperature in the upper fifties. Since arriving in the Bay Area, Annie had developed an impressive collection of cheap umbrellas and always kept several in her car and one tucked in the tapestry tote she carried everywhere. She estimated she'd lost at least a half dozen since Thanksgiving. It wasn't that it rained all that much in San Francisco, she'd decided, but that it didn't snow. So it seemed that it rained more than in Maine. She had tried to explain this deduction to Zoe Summer, who ran the aromatherapy shop next to Annie's Gallery, but Zoe, a native of Seattle, said Annie didn't know rain.

She felt a rare tug of trepidation as she approached the imposing, ornate Linwood house, an elaborate Victorian mansion in lemon yellow. It was one of the most famous in San Francisco. Lush green grass carpeted a regal front yard, and beautifully maintained shrubs softened tall, elegantly draped windows that were so spotless they sparkled even in the gloom. The Linwoods were up there with the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Hearsts, not the usual sort Annie was used to hanging out with on her Maine peninsula.

A uniformed guard was posted at the end of the brick walk that led to the front entrance. Annie handed him her ticket to the private auction. She had attended a few of Ernie's Saturday night auctions on the Hathaway farm, inland up toward the lakes. She had once almost talked Gran into letting her buy a lamb.

A different time, a different life.

The guard scrutinized her ticket first, then her. She told herself he probably did that to everybody, not just her. She couldn't look that different from the dealers and collectors at the auction. Although her wardrobe was still limited, she had on a perfectly respectable outfit: a silk sweater over a calf-length skirt in a dusky blue, with silver earrings and her good black leather ankle boots. She'd pulled her hair up into a passable twist and, given the uncertain weather, had brought along Gran's Portuguese shawl, which had spent the nameless, devastating storm at her office at the museum. It was black wool with bright crewel embroidered flowers and exotic birds, and Annie suspected it really was a piano cover rather than a shawl. But it was beautiful and rather Victorian-looking, perfect, she thought, for her first San Francisco auction.

"Use the front entrance, Ms. Payne. A guard will direct you to the ballroom."

The guard handed her back her ticket in a way that made Annie wonder if she had dog slobber on her sweater. Or maybe she was just a tad paranoid because of the strange circumstances that had brought her here today.

With a hasty parting smile, she proceeded up the walk. The cool, rainy winter weather brought out the scent of flowers and grass and earth and reminded her of early spring mornings in Maine. It was the dead of winter there now. She sucked in a quick breath at the sudden stab of nostalgia, the unbidden image of her and Gran watching the fog swirling over the bay from their old wooden Adirondack chairs on the cottage porch. She tucked a drifting strand of hair back into its pin, steadying herself. She was in San Francisco at an auction that would require her to keep her wits about her. She wouldn't -- she couldn't -- indulge in daydreaming about a life that was no more. She planned to enjoy herself even as she completed her rather peculiar mission on Pacific Heights.

"I have to have that painting," the woman whom Annie knew only as Sarah had told her.

After checking with the second guard at the front door, she ventured down the center hall of the cool, beautiful mansion, peeking into elegant rooms that were blocked off to the public with velvet ropes, absorbing every detail of architecture, design, and decor. Although the house had been unoccupied for several years, it was gleaming, spotless, without a single sign of neglect or disrepair. The Linwoods had put it up for sale. Hence, the auction of much of its contents. From what Annie gathered, necessity -- banks, debts, the IRS -- hadn't played a role in the decision to sell. But she really hadn't done much investigating. She was too busy with her gallery and settling into her new life -- and even with her odd mission, there was no need for details. Her role at the auction was simple and clear, and, she had to admit, had an intriguing element of excitement and mystery. She had never represented an anonymous buyer at an auction.

A smartly dressed woman behind a table at the ballroom entrance checked Annie's identification and took a letter from her bank as assurance that any check she wrote wouldn't bounce. It was all brisk, formal, and routine, but Annie noticed that her palms had gone clammy. Wishing to remain completely anonymous, Sarah had deposited ten thousand dollars into Annie's checking account on Thursday morning. It was all perfectly legal, just unusual. What was to keep Annie from ducking the auction and blowing the money herself? But Sarah seemed to trust her.

The woman at the table presented Annie with a white card with the number 112 in large, legible, black print. Suppressing a twinge of nervousness, Annie managed a quick smile before proceeding into the ornate ballroom. Scores of buyers were settling into rows of mundane folding chairs set up against a backdrop of glittering crystal chandeliers, lavish murals of pre-1906 San Francisco and breathtaking views of the bay. Annie found a vacant chair well into a middle row and sat down, tucking her tapestry bag at her feet, suddenly feeling ridiculously tense.

What if someone else bid on the painting? What if she didn't get it?

The rest of the chairs soon filled up, an announcement was made that the proceeds from the auction would go to the Haley Linwood Foundation, and, finally, things got under way. The auctioneer was thin, white-haired and regal, a far cry, Annie thought, from Ernie Hathaway.

The first items went fast, with only token competition. There was no yelling, no complaining, no hooting. This was San Francisco. This was Pacific Heights. Even Gran, a pragmatic woman who didn't stand on ceremony, had considered Ernie's auctions a spectacle.

After forty minutes, the painting came up. Annie held her breath as it was brought out and set on an easel, then gasped in shock the moment it was uncovered. The buyers seated near her glanced at her in surprise. She tried to control herself. She was totally unprepared for this one: the painting was Sarah's work. There was no question.

Clutching her shawl in her lap, Annie forced herself not to speculate on how a painting by a reclusive, eccentric artist had ended up in a Linwood auction.

She'd first met Sarah last week when she'd made a brief, uneventful visit to Annie's Gallery. She was an eccentric woman with lank, graying hair, plain features, and a wardrobe of thrift-store clothes. A debilitating condition necessitated the use of a cane. She hadn't bought anything or asked any questions, and Annie only remembered her because of her unusual appearance -- and because she didn't have that many customers. Then, two days later, Sarah called and invited Annie to tea.

With nothing better to do, Annie had accepted, venturing up to Sarah's tiny house on a hill overlooking the city. The strange woman was again dressed in thrift-store clothes but was using a walker to get around instead of her cane. Annie might have dismissed her as a lunatic and politely excused herself but for the canvases haphazardly stacked throughout Sarah's small house. With a grandmother artist, artist friends, and her own experience setting up art displays at the maritime museum where she'd served as director, Annie had developed an eye for art. She'd learned to recognize the real thing when she saw it. And that was what Sarah's canvases were, without doubt: the real thing.

In her excitement over her discovery of an amazing new artistic talent, Annie had perhaps acted in haste in agreeing to represent Sarah at today's auction. She hadn't pressed for any details of who Sarah was or why she wanted the painting or why she just didn't go buy it herself. All that, Annie had thought, could come later.

Now she had her first hint of why Sarah wanted this particular painting. It was her work, undoubtedly an early piece. The technique was awkward in places, unsure of itself, lacking the boldness and confidence of the canvases Annie had seen over tea. But the essential ingredients of what made the reclusive, eccentric woman in mismatched socks and tattered Keds such a compelling artist were there.

The subject was a red-haired girl of fifteen or sixteen with pale ivory skin and warm blue eyes. She wore just a denim shirt and jeans, her long hair pulled back, her casual manner in contrast to the formal, traditional sitting room background. Even in this early work, Annie could see Sarah's hand in the unabashed nostalgic mood of the painting, its subtle use of color, its determination to capture the spirit of its subject and get at who she was, what she wanted to become.

Sarah, Annie thought, could have dispatched her to buy the portrait in an effort to get any strays back under her control before going public with her art. It would be a smart move. But Annie tried not to get ahead of herself in case she was wrong, and this brilliant, unknown artist had no intention of letting Annie's Gallery represent her work.

The auctioneer announced he had a sealed bid for five hundred dollars. Did anyone want to bid higher? His tone suggested he expected no one would.

Jerked out of her stupor, Annie jumped forward in her seat. A sealed bid? From whom? Someone else was bidding on the painting? She whipped around, searching for the culprit. The serious buyers, she'd already figured out, stood at the edges of the ballroom and slipped to the back when something came up that interested them. But she hadn't expected any competition.

Did someone else know about Sarah? To Annie's eye, her talent was apparent in the portrait up on the easel, but it was only a spark, a hint of the explosive work the artist might eventually produce.

"Five hundred. Do I have a bid for five hundred and fifty?"

Annie thrust her hand high up into the air. She didn't care if that wasn't how the professional buyers did it. She wanted to make sure the auctioneer saw her.

"Five hundred and fifty," he said in acknowledgment of her bid. "Do I have six hundred?"

In a half second, he said he did. Annie still had no idea who in the crowd was bidding against her. She raised her hand for six fifty. Sarah had anticipated that Annie would be the only bidder and would get the painting for a few hundred dollars, but, unwilling to chance missing this opportunity, she'd insisted on making the ten thousand dollars available. Annie had dismissed the gesture as overly dramatic.

It was a long way from six hundred fifty to ten thousand, she thought, calming herself. She wouldn't run out of money. She wouldn't fail. "Bid the entire ten thousand if you must. I don't care," Sarah, the mysterious artist, had told her. Annie desperately wanted to succeed, more so than she would willingly admit. Sarah's work was so incredible -- Annie knew it was -- that it could be the catalyst she needed for her struggling new life.

The auctioneer looked at her. The bidding was up to eight hundred. Annie pulled her lower lip in between her teeth and nodded.

A murmur of excitement ran through the crowd. Even the bland auctioneer seemed to get his blood up. Annie followed his gaze to the back of the ballroom as he asked for nine hundred.

Before she could pick out who he was looking at, he said he had nine hundred and turned his attention back to her. He asked for a thousand. He was going up by hundreds now. Annie hadn't noticed any of the fifteen or twenty well-dressed men and women standing in back make a move. She could feel her stomach churning. Relax, it's not your money. They wouldn't go higher than ten thousand. That would be lunacy. The artist was an unknown, the girl was an unknown. There was no point. Later, when Sarah was introduced to the art world and acknowledged as a major new talent, maybe there would be. But not now.

Annie nodded at the auctioneer.

Her opponent immediately went up to eleven hundred.

She whipped around and glared, and her eyes made contact with a man in a dark suit. And she knew. This was her opponent. This was the man who wanted the painting of the red-haired girl.

Her mouth went dry. His eyes bored into her. Annie inhaled sharply, certain she wasn't sparring with a dealer. There was nothing sporting about his expression, nothing of the dealer who took competition and defeat in stride. He wanted the painting, and he had expected to get it for five hundred dollars.

He hadn't, it seemed, expected Annie Payne.

The auctioneer called for twelve hundred. With her gaze still pinned on her opponent, Annie nodded. She wasn't going to back down. She wasn't going to let him unnerve her. She didn't care who he was or why he wanted the painting.

His expression remained grim and determined, giving no indication he was having any fun at all. He had angular, riveting features and very dark hair, but for some reason she couldn't even imagine, Annie guessed his eyes were lighter: gray or green or even blue. She tried to picture him somewhere besides a tense auction room. Where might he smile? Where might he not look so humorless and intense? Roaming the Marin hills, perhaps. Rock climbing. Horseback riding across a meadow. Anywhere, possibly, but a Pacific Heights auction.

He wasn't here for the thrill of an auction, she thought with a sinking feeling.

He was here for the painting.

Annie turned back around and concentrated on her task. Would he let the bidding go over ten thousand?

In another two minutes, it was up to three thousand. Perspiration trickled down the small of her back. She had her shawl clutched tightly in her hands. She was shaking. She resisted the impulse to spin around in her seat and have another look at her opponent. She didn't want him thinking she was desperate, intimidated, terrified that he would outbid her. She couldn't afford to goad him.

She had to win.

An old woman three rows in front turned around and frowned at her. Let the man have the painting, girlie, her expression said. Who do you think you are?

But Annie bid thirty-one hundred. And her dark-haired, dark-suited opponent bid thirty-two, and she could hear the murmurs of sympathy for him even as she bid thirty-three.

Then he went to four. Annie didn't know how he did it. He hadn't uttered a sound. She whipped around.

His eyes were already on her. Steady, confident. Daring her.

Biting on one corner of her mouth, Annie noticed that everyone else's eyes were on her, too. The auctioneer waited for her response. She put up all five fingers, hoping he would understand her bid.

He did. "The bid is at five thousand."

She thought she heard somebody mutter, "Who is she? Why doesn't she let him have it? Doesn't she know who he is?"

No, she didn't. And what difference did it make who he was? She had as much right to that painting as anyone else in the room. More, perhaps, since she was representing the artist who'd painted it.

Her heart pounding, she waited for him to answer her bid. Five thousand was a ridiculous amount to pay for such a painting. People would think she was crazy -- until they saw Sarah's subsequent work. Then they would know and understand.

If she had to use Sarah's entire ten thousand, Annie thought, she would.

But the man in the dark suit passed. Stunned, Annie glanced back at him. He gave her a mock salute with one finger and retreated through double doors into an adjoining room that she was quite sure was one of the ones blocked off to the public.

The painting was hers.

"Well," the old woman a few rows up snapped, "I hope she's happy."

She is, Annie thought, her relief making her feel limp and a little like crying. She's very happy.

Now that the thrill of the battle was over, she became acutely aware of a current of hostility directed at her. It wasn't just that people had sympathized with her opponent, they were annoyed with her for outbidding him. And it wasn't just a few people. No wonder Sarah hadn't wanted to come to the auction herself.

Nice, Annie thought. Maybe I can get out of here before anybody finds out who I am.

She pulled her tapestry bag onto her lap, prepared to make a run for it in case someone tried to drag her off to the lions. Why wasn't she garnering any sympathy? She wasn't some tall, rich guy standing in the back of the room. She hadn't tried to burn holes through him with her eyes. What happened to rooting for the underdog?

Mercifully, the runners brought out a magnificent set of rare Austrian china. The auction resumed. Annie got to her feet. She felt jittery and self-conscious, her hands and knees trembling. Excusing herself to each person whose feet she had to climb over, she stumbled back out to the aisle.

A portly middle-aged man on the end said, "You must have wanted that painting very much to go up against Garvin MacCrae."

"Who's Garvin MacCrae?"

"You don't know? I wondered. He's the husband of the girl in the painting."

"What?"

But he was trying to see around her, and someone in back hissed for her to move out of the way, and so she did, tightening her grip on her bag and shawl to keep her hands from shaking visibly. She burst out into the aisle.

Her opponent was the husband of the girl in the painting. Well, how was she supposed to have known? Probably he'd intended to buy it for an anniversary or a birthday present. Here, honey. Remember that crazy woman who painted you when you were sixteen? Was his wife a Linwood? How had she known lank-haired, odd Sarah? How had Sarah come to paint her as a teenager?

It doesn't matter, Annie told herself. You have the painting. It's yours to return to the woman who had painted it. Garvin MacCrae will just have to find something else to give his wife.

Copyright © 1997 by Carla Neggers