Deadly Inheritance — Alice Sharpe

All Meg Fisher wants when she buys herself an old house on a Northern California bluff is a quiet existence. It isn't long, however, until she realizes the house has quite a history, including the hanging suicide of the former owner. Gerda left behind several disturbing paintings in the house and soon the neighbors are filling Meg's head with equally distressing speculations about the old lady's mental health.

But when Meg meets Gerda's nephew, Matthew Davis, he tells her about the lonely old woman who communicated her heartbreak via her art. Meg and Matthew have no idea what Gerda's last paintings represent, they just know they are the most chilling of all. After one of them ends up missing and Gerda is linked to an unsolved murder, they realize they have to solve the puzzle of the paintings soon before their own lives are torn asunder.