{"product_id":"arts-blood-isbn-9780440242093","title":"Art's Blood","description":"North Carolina’s hills are a crazy quilt of old farmsteads and new beginnings, of locals, strangers, artists, and new age wanderers….Here Elizabeth Goodweather has made her life, a still-young widow who moves easily between the gentrified world of Asheville and old-timers in their hollows. But when a flamboyant performance artist is murdered, and Elizabeth learns the amazing history of a magnificent piece of folk art, she gets caught between her two worlds–and in the middle of an agonizing mystery.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA young woman, taking her artwork to the breaking point, has brought a history of unexplained deaths and dangerous liaisons into Elizabeth’s life. Courted by an ex-cop, trying to protect her love-struck nephew, Elizabeth knows that danger has entered her peaceful world. But she can’t guess how deadly the threat is–nor how masterfully a killer can hide....\" The widow Goodweather is a wonderful character: plucky, hip and wise. \"—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly \u003c\/i\u003eVICKI LANE lives with her husband, two sons, and daughter-in-law on a mountain farm in North Carolina, where she is at work on the third Elizabeth Goodweather mystery.CHAPTER 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     \u003cbr\u003eDon't Know Much about Art, But . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(Saturday, August 27)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    From her vantage point at the top of the steps leading into the gallery,  Elizabeth Goodweather regarded the pile of burnt matchsticks with an  expression that wavered between hilarity and disbelief. The heap of pale  wooden slivers, some charred just slightly at one end, others little more  than a fragile curl of carbon, sat in the exact middle of the room on a low  pedestal covered with a sheet of thick red vinyl. The assemblage was about  four feet in diameter and its peak was knee high. And growing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The stark bone-white walls of the gallery had been covered with a fine grid  of narrow scarlet-lacquered shelves bearing red and blue boxes of kitchen  matches in uniform rows. As Elizabeth watched, one after another of the  dinner-jacketed and evening-gowned throng of art patrons took boxes from the  wall and began striking matches, extinguishing them, and adding them to the  charred accumulation that was the focus of the evening's event.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Seemingly all of Asheville \"society\" had turned out to mark the late August  opening of the Gordon Annex: a long-awaited and costly addition to the  Asheville Museum of Art. It was the munificent gift of a single  benefactor--Lily Gordon. This elegant little woman--\"somewhere in her  nineties,\" whispered a woman to Elizabeth's left--had cut the crimson ribbon  that stretched across the entrance to the annex and had spoken a few brief  words in a voice that, though slightly cracked with age, was clear and  carrying. Her spare frame was upright, conceding not an inch to age. Now she  sat in a comfortable chair with the museum's director crouched by her side  and the chairman of the board leaning down to catch her words.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The old woman wore a simple but beautifully cut evening dress of black satin  accented with white--\"vintage Chanel,\" Elizabeth's neighbor had informed a  friend--and her arthritic fingers were covered with rings that glittered as  she reached up to accept a glass of champagne from the chairman of the  board. Behind her chair stood a tough-looking, gray-haired man in a dark  blue suit. His craggy face was expressionless and his eyes scanned the  throng without stopping. More a like a secret service agent than an art  lover, Elizabeth decided.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Fascinated, she studied the little group, wondering what this very old woman  made of the scene unfolding before her apparently amused gaze. \"She's always  been the museum's greatest patron,\" someone behind Elizabeth murmured,  \"absolutely millions of dollars. Her house is literally crammed with  art--Picasso, Kandinsky, Pollock--just to name a few. She and her husband  began collecting just after World War II. Of course . . .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The voice moved away and Elizabeth smiled, wondering if she looked as out of  place as she felt in this rarified crowd.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"You are coming in for the opening of the Gordon Annex at the museum, aren't  you?\" Her younger daughter Laurel, on a visit out to the farm a few days  earlier, had fixed her with a demanding eye. \"It's this coming Saturday.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Ah,\" Elizabeth had hedged, \"Saturday . . . Well, I. . .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Mum, this is a really important show! And you know the artists--Kyra and  Boz and Aidan. They're just across the hard road which makes them neighbors.  So the least you can do . . .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As an aspiring artist herself, Laurel was very much a part of the burgeoning  art scene in Asheville and had done her best to develop Elizabeth's  appreciation for the latest trends. Last year Laurel's passion had been  outsider art; this year, performance art was evidently the next new thing.  Although she supported herself with a job tending bar at an upscale  restaurant, Laurel devoted most of her free time to constructing vast  mixed-media \"pieces,\" as Elizabeth had learned to call them. Recently,  however, Laurel had begun to speak wistfully about the \"ephemeral beauty\" of  performance art and of the \"spiritual purity\" of a carefully choreographed  presentation that would never be repeated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Laurel had been relentless. \"It's going to be something really special--the  people attending the show will participate in the creation--\" She had broken  off, seeing Elizabeth's face, which unmistakably said, Oh, great. \"--if they  choose to, I mean. And then Kyra and Boz and Aidan will be taking pictures  during the piece and next month there'll be a show at the QuerY to display  the photographs. And--\" she continued, with the air of someone producing a  trump card, \"there's going to be a really awesome twist to the whole thing  that I can't tell you about now but it's going to generate some incredible  publicity for those guys.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Elizabeth had, without enthusiasm, agreed to meet Laurel at the Saturday  night opening. Kyra and Boz and Aidan were neighbors and one did for  neighbors whenever possible. Even if it means going to some ridiculous  performance and dressing up for it--evening clothes, my god! Elizabeth had  fumed, rummaging in her closet for something to wear. At last she found a  long black skirt of heavy polished cotton that she had worn to some  forgotten event, and a white silk shirt still in its gift box, a Christmas  present from her sister two--or was it three?--years past. A narrow  jewel-toned scarf, discovered crammed in the back of a drawer of socks and  underwear, would work as a cummerbund. Suddenly her mood had improved.  They're just kids, after all. To have a show at the Museum of Art is a big  deal for Kyra and Boz and Aidan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    KyraandBozandAidan: one tended to think of them that way. Indeed, when they  had first moved to the little house across the road from her farm, Elizabeth  had assumed they were a menage à trois. Laurel, however, had explained, with  the careful patience of one speaking to the elderly and unhip, that while at  first Kyra and Aidan had been partners, when Boz had come on the scene they  had briefly experimented with a three-way relationship. Eventually Kyra and  Boz had excluded Aidan from the king-size futon that dominated the larger of  the two bedrooms. However, no matter who slept with whom, the three still  functioned artistically and domestically as a single entity and seemed to  live in relative harmony.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When Dessie, her old neighbor across the road died, Elizabeth had been  saddened to see the once neatly kept yard growing up in weeds. It had been  welcome news when one of the daughters called to say that the house was  rented. \"They said they was friends of Laurel and they seemed real nice,  though they are awful hippies. They want to fix up the ol' barn fer a place  to do their paintin' and such.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And the three young people had settled into the rural mountain community  with uncommon ease. Boz and Aidan had been quick to offer help with simple  carpentry and plumbing repairs for some of their older neighbors and were  said to be \"right good hands to work,\" while Kyra--whose nose ring and  tattoos were the source of much head-shaking and tongue-clicking among the  local women--Kyra had won hearts by joining in, friendly and competent, at a  quilting bee held at the volunteer fire department.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Elizabeth had taken her new neighbors a round loaf of homemade bread and a  basket of fresh herbs when they first moved in. But chores of the farm had  kept her busy, and beyond a quick chat the few times she met one or another  of the trio at the mailboxes, Elizabeth had seen little of the three in the  six months since they'd arrived.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There had been the occasional encounter in Ransom, the nearby county seat, a  somnolent country town that had only recently attained its second stoplight.  She'd seen her neighbors most recently in the hardware store where she was  purchasing hinges to repair a sagging door. All three were clustered around  a metal bin, evidently assessing the artistic potential of a mass of nails.  Boz, at six five and in his customary red cowboy boots, towered over the  other two. His frizzy brown mop of hair, wide, crooked nose, and acne-pitted  face were unattractive, at best, but his deep voice and booming laugh seemed  to mark him as the trio's obvious leader.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Aidan was as handsome as Boz was ugly. Really . . . beautiful, rather than  handsome, Elizabeth had thought at the time. Slender, but well muscled,  Aidan stood not quite six feet tall with smooth tanned skin and long pale  blond hair that he usually wore in a sleek ponytail. Only his lower left arm  and hand marred the perfection, carrying as they did the discolored marks of  some long-ago injury and three permanently crooked fingers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Kyra was tiny, barely reaching Aidan's shoulder. With her spiky hair dyed a  jet black, nose ring, and multiple tattoos, she was an incongruous sight  amid the hardware and farm implements--yet in spite of all these distracting  affectations, Elizabeth had suddenly realized that Kyra was a very pretty  young woman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shaking herself out of her reveries, Elizabeth tried to pay attention to the  scene unfolding around her. Strike on Box had been billed as participatory  performance art and had been accorded the honor of being the inaugural  \"piece\" to be presented in the museum's new wing. Kyra and Boz and Aidan,  billed simply as The 3--the name they signed to all their joint  artworks--were moving around the gallery, each armed with a digital camera.  Kyra was flitting about the room, chatting easily with onlookers and  encouraging their participation. Aidan's camera was focused on the growing  pile of burnt matches, and as Elizabeth watched, Boz, snapping shot after  shot, approached the chair where the old woman was seated. He thrust the  lens close to her unsmiling face and said something. An expression of  distaste pulled down the old woman's thin lips, but she did not reply.  Instead she raised one hand slightly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Instantly the blue-suited man came forward and motioned Boz to move away.  Boz stared down in disbelief at the smaller man, then laughed. The smaller  man took a step forward and spoke briefly. After a moment's hesitation Boz  shrugged his shoulders and moved on. The other man watched him go and then  turned to the old woman, whose displeased look had not wavered. She raised a  finger and the man bent his head close to her mouth. She spoke a few words,  then resumed her aloof study of the evening's entertainment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Elizabeth looked on, bemused, as the flamboyant Boz moved through the crowd,  seemingly unfazed by the recent rebuff. He moved to one wall where a  voluptuous blonde--trophy wife, Elizabeth decided--was stretching to  retrieve a box of matches from the topmost grid. Boz crept up behind her,  aimed the camera at her stiletto heels, and slowly, lasciviously, shot the  length of her tightly gowned body, lingering on the rounded buttocks, then,  as she turned, zooming in on her abundant cleavage. Her squeal expressed  surprised delight, and a tanned, silver-haired man who had been wordlessly  watching burst into a raucous guffaw. \"He's immortalized that expensive ass  of yours, babe. I always did say you were a work of art.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Across the gallery a little knot of attendees burst into laughter. From  their midst emerged a trim middle-aged man in beautifully tailored evening  clothes. His head was completely bald and shone as if waxed. Diamond studs  sparkled in his earlobes, and a vest, lavishly embroidered in deep metallic  blues and greens, could be glimpsed beneath his dinner jacket. A man's voice  somewhere to Elizabeth's right said in a low tone to an unseen companion,  \"He's here to protect his little investment. I warned him that he was taking  a chance with a loose cannon like Boz, but oh no, the big gallery owner  knows best. He swears that the photographs from this performance will fly  out the door, once he mounts the show at the QuerY.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I'd heard that he likes them rough,\" sniffed the other man. \"I, personally,  don't care for the acne-pitted look. Now, the other one . . . that blond boy  . . . quite delicious. Just like that gorgeous elf in the Lord of the Rings  films.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The owner of Asheville's newest gallery had succeeded in gaining Boz's  attention and was trailing after him, speaking urgently as the young artist  continued his circuit of the room, seemingly intent on capturing images of  all the attendees. After a few minutes, Boz turned the camera on the bald  man, aiming first at his shining head, then, as he had done with the shapely  trophy wife, slowly panning the gallery owner's body, pausing at his crotch,  then crouching down to angle for a rear shot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The bald man whirled, his face flaming, and melted back into the crowd.  Pleased snickers erupted from the pair at Elizabeth's right, and they, too,  moved away, trading delighted speculations as to whether or not those  particular photographs would show up at the QuerY.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Elizabeth looked around the crowded room for Laurel, who seemed to have  disappeared. Standing on tiptoe, she tried to catch a glimpse of her  daughter's fiery mop of dreadlocks amid the careful coiffures of the society  matrons who were giggling like teenagers as they struck match after match.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But Laurel was nowhere in sight. Elizabeth began edging toward the door that  led to the smaller gallery where photographs of rural Appalachia were on  display. She had seen them before, but . . . All this silly carrying-on, she  thought, I need to look at something real.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She wove her way between the chattering art patrons, feeling safely  invisible in her anonymous black skirt and white shirt. Maybe not exactly  invisible, she thought, as a pair of men thrust empty glasses in her  direction while continuing to squabble amicably about the stock market.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At the door to the smaller gallery, Elizabeth stopped and scanned the crowd  once more for sight of her daughter. No sign of Laurel, nor, she suddenly  realized, of The 3. She hesitated, wondering if a new phase of the  performance was about to begin. But the smell and smoke of hundreds of  matches were beginning to be annoying. Deciding that she would risk missing  whatever was next, Elizabeth shouldered her way between two brittle-faced  women who were regaling each other in piercing tones with horror stories  concerning the outrageous demands of their respective au pairs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The smaller gallery was blessedly quiet and almost empty. A few patrons  studied the large black-and-white photographs whose subjects were so like  many of Elizabeth's neighbors. Straight ahead of her was a picture of a  sturdy white-haired woman in a housedress leaning down to milk a cow. That  looks familiar. Elizabeth smiled, remembering her recently deceased  neighbor. She moved slowly around the gallery, working her way to her  favorite picture--a shaggy workhorse being led down through a snowy barnyard  toward a rude gate--when she heard voices.","brand":"Dell","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302094885093,"sku":"NP9780440242093","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780440242093.jpg?v=1742926181","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/arts-blood-isbn-9780440242093","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}