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Clarrington madness was in you. We thought we'd beaten the odds." She began to laugh, but there was no amusement in the sound. The black eyes snapped cold fire. "Don't try to trick me. I know what I know. We've talked for long enough. I have waited a very long time for this. Why don't I feel excited any more?" "Because, my poor son, you are quite mad," she said. The knife caught her under the ribcage, slowing her own movement. But not enough. She pulled her small automatic from the cushion behind her and fired it, point blank, into his face. His blood and brains spattered the table, the chair, and her jumpsuit with color. Marise gasped. The knife had pulled out of her body at his reflexive jerk. Blood was oozing in a warm flood down her side. With a terrible effort, she pulled herself up and stood swaying over the body of her son. "God send you peace, Benjie," she said. She staggered through the door, across the half landing, onto the stair. The front door loomed near its foot, distant as Everest. With terrible peasant toughness, she set her foot on the step. Clinging to the banister, she struggled downward, kept from falling by her will alone. The door was nearer. She was almost there, but the light was too dim. She couldn't make out the hall tree. Nothing except the big door. Then it, too, grew misty. She fell to her knees on the velvet rug at the bottom of the steps. Her hands moved toward the door, as if with a life of their own. Then they drooped and went still. Not even the sound of her breathinginterrupted the quiet. -------- EPILOGUE: EVAN Evan had not slept well. The memory of that interview with Marise had haunted his dreams, distorted and filled with nightmarish images. Finally, when dawn touched the east, he gave up trying to sleep and went into his small kitchen to make coffee. This was Saturday. There was no work today to distract him from his unease, nothing planned except perhaps golf at two o'clock with a couple of the Board members. That left the morning completely unoccupied. He knew before the sun was well up that he was going to visit Marise. The reason, of course, was his need to replace Gertrude Fisk. He kept telling himself that as he got ready, but he kept seeing the thoughtful tilt of Marise's fair head, the evasive expression on her narrow face. Something was wrong. Badly wrong, if his instinct was right. He wouldn't have a moment's ease until he had made her tell him what that might be. He put on his loafers, got his wallet, and walked quickly away from the house into the freshness of the morning. Already it promised to be hot. If Marise wasn't up yet he would wait. The walk would give her time to wake and drink her coffee, he hoped, and the exercise seemed to calm his nerves. His impatient feet drove his long legs more quickly than he had intended, and the half mile through the shady streets went faster than he'd planned. Before the sun was much higher he was in front of the granite structure. It was too early, and he knew it, but he shook the gate impatiently, anyway. The ironwork opened to his shove. Something cold and deadly chilled beneath his breastbone. He moved up the walk and the steps to the front door and tried it. His hand was shaking, by now. It, too, moved without hesitation. Evan felt sick dread rise in him, but he pushed the door wide open and let the pale morning light fall across the hardwood floor and the velvet drugget of the entry hall. Marise lay between the foot of the stair and the door, her hand stretched forward as if she had been reaching for help or safety. When he touched her arm she was cold and stiff. Her dark jumpsuit was patterned with splotches of rusty blood, which stained the little rug with bright patches. Evan stared upward, knowing she must have come down the stair. Those blotches of blood were clearly visible on every step. Would he never finish making terrible discoveries in this house? He looked back down at the dead woman at his feet. Then he stepped around her, very gently, and climbed toward her tower sitting room. A man lay there, and for a bit he couldn't think who this might be. The face had been shattered by the bullet that killed him, but the eyes were open. Black eyes. Like Ben Clarrington's. The portrait on the wall told Evan more. Marise had known or suspected something dreadful. The letter -- she must have realized, once he told her Benjie's body had not been found, that it could come only from her son. It was logical, and he was proud of being able to think rationally when he wanted to scream and weep and beat his fists against the pale paper of the walls. He would never know if his guess was accurate, but it satisfied him. Marise would never have protected any murderer except her son. He made his way down again, averting his eyes from the pitiful body on [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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