‘What am I doing?’ Tina thought, getting infuriated with herself. ‘Not that I had any chance even if she would have lived to be a hundred years old. I have to get closure to this story. I can’t go on like this.’

~~~~~~~~

Tina tried to call Shane because she needed someone to talk to but the line was busy for more than an hour. Dana was away for a week on one of her tournaments and Alice was still in Oregon. Tina got a postcard from Portland two days ago with a short note that said: ‘I’m having the time of my life, love to all, be back soon. Love, Al.’

‘Typical Alice,’ Tina thought while reading the note, ‘she can talk for hours about everything and nothing but to write something more substantial after being gone for nearly two months? Nope, Alice is so not a writer.’

Barely surviving the work day and still worn out, Tina finally got home and fell on the couch with exhaustion. Her head turned downwards and her eyes became fixated on the paper copies of the story about Elizabeth’s murder and her beautiful portrait.

Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to rest her body or mind without at least trying to understand and maybe even solve the mystery of the miniature painting, Tina decided to play Sherlock Holmes.

“Okay, one thing at a time,” she uttered trying to sound cheerful, as she sat straight on a couch, took a notebook out of her purse and wrote on the piece of paper three clues, one after another:

Bullet trace

Initials CK

Inscription

“Okay, bullet should be the easiest one,” Tina began to deliberate out loud, hoping that she wouldn’t feel like a complete moron. “If Elizabeth was shot through her heart then I can assume that the painting was somewhere near that area of her body. It’s a miniature and if her horseback riding outfit had pockets in it, the painting could easily fit in a breast pocket. I remember reading once that in those times people, especially the ladies, were so bored sometimes that they always carried with them small diaries or miniature Shakespeare’s sonnets…so why not miniature paintings? It was probably given to her by one of her lovers or her art teacher. Look at her…she is so gorgeous that someone fell in love with her, painted her portrait, gave it to her and she was carrying it around close to her heart as a keepsake.”