Puzzled, he went back and locked it.
She took the pistol from the foyer and carried it with her.
Something was wrong, something more than Eric’s death, but Ben did not
understand what it was.
The living room was shrouded in deep shadows, for she had drawn all the
drapes. That was distinctly odd.
Ordinarily she loved the sun and reveled in its warm caress with the
languid pleasure of a cat sunning on a windowsill. Me had never seen
the drapes drawn in this house until now.
“Leave them closed,” Rachael said when Ben started to unveil the
windows.
She switched on a single lamp and sat in its amber glow, in the corner
of a peach-colored sofa. The room was very modern, all in shades of
peach and white with dark blue accents, polished bronze lamps, and a
bronze-and-glass coffee table. In her blue robe she was in harmony with
the decor.
She put the pistol on the table beside the lamp. Near to hand.
Ben retrieved her champagne and chocolate from the bathroom and brought
them to her. In the kitchen, he got another cold split of champagne and
a glass for himself.
When he joined her on the living-room sofa, she said, “It doesn’t seem
right. The champagne and chocolate, I mean. It looks as if I’m
celebrating his death.”
“Considering what a bastard he was to you, perhaps a celebration would
be justified.”
She shook her head adamantly. “No. Death is never a cause for
celebration, Benny. No matter what the circumstances. Never.”
But she unconsciously ran her fingertips back and forth along the pale,
pencil-thin, barely visible three-inch scar that followed the edge of
her delicate jawline on the right side of her face. A year ago, in one
of his nastier moods, Eric had thruwn a glass of Scotch at her. It had
missed, hitting the wall and shattering, but a sharp fragment had caught
her on the rebound, slicing her cheek, requiring fifteen expertly sewn
little stitches to avoid a prominent scar. That was the day she finally
walked out on him. Eric would never hurt her again.
She had to be relieved by his death even if only on a subconscious
level.
Pausing now and then to sip champagne, she told Ben about this morning’s
meeting in the attorney’s office and about the subsequent altercation on
the sidewalk when Eric took her by the arm and seemed on the verge of
violence. She recounted the accident and the hideous condition of the
corpse in vivid detail, as if she had to put every terrible, bloody
image into words in order to be free of it. She told him about making
the funeral arrangements as well, and as she spoke, her shaky hands
gradually grew steadier.
He sat close, turned sideways to face her, with one hand on her
shoulder. Sometimes he moved his hand to gently massage her neck or to
stroke her copperbrown hair.
“Thirty million dollars,” he said when she had finished, shaking his
head at the irony of her getting everything when she had been willing to
settle for so little.
“I don’t really want it,” she said. “I’ve half a mind to give it away.
A large part of it, anyway.”
“It’s yours to do with as you wish,” he said. “But don’t make any
decisions now that you’d regret later.”
She looked down into the champagne glass that she held in both hands.
Frowning worriedly, she said, “Of course, he’d be furious if I gave it
away.”
“Who?”
“Eric,” she said softly.
Ben thought it odd that she should be concerned about Eric’s
disapproval. Obviously she was still shaken by events and not yet quite
herself. “Give yourself time to adjust to the circumstances.”
She sighed and nodded. “What time is it?”
He looked at his watch. “Ten minutes till seven.”
“I called a lot of people earlier this afternoon and told them what
happened, let them khow about the funeral.
But there must be thirty or forty more to get in touch with. He had no
close relatives-just a few cousins.
And an aunt he loathed. Not many friends, either. He wasn’t a man who
cared much for friends, and he didn’t have much talent for making them.