Genuine Lies

of us, but there is one more item Miss Benedict asked me to see to for her.” He held out a padded envelope. “A copy of the tape she made. Her request was for you, both of you, to view this after the reading of the will.”
    “Thank you.” Paul accepted the bag. “She would have appreciated your … efficiency.”
    “No doubt.” The barest wisp of a smile touched his thin face. “She was quite a woman—annoying, demanding, opinionated. I’ll miss her.” The smile faded as if it had never been. “If you need me for anything, please don’t hesitate to call. You may have questions about some of the properties or her portfolio. And when you’re ready, there will be some paperwork for you to look over. My condolences.”
    “I’d like to take Miss Summers home shortly,” Paul told him. “But we’ll want to go inside and have some privacy whenwe view this. Could I leave you to—to secure the premises?”
    Something twinkled in his eyes that might have been amusement. “It would be a pleasure.”
    Paul waited until they were alone on the terrace again. Through the glass doors Greenburg had closed at his back came the sounds of heated voices and bitter tears. The old man was going to have his hands full, he thought, then looked at Julia. Her eyes were dry again, her face composed. But her skin was so pale he wondered if his fingers would pass right through it, straight to the grief, if he touched her now.
    “It might be best if we went up to Eve’s room to take a look at this.”
    Julia stared at the package he held. Part of her, the part she recognized as a coward, wanted to turn away, to go pick up Brandon and run back east. Couldn’t she, if she tried hard enough, convince herself it had all been a dream. From the first phone call, the first meeting with Eve, right up to this moment?
    She brought her gaze up, met his eyes. Then he would have been a dream as well. Then he would have to be a dream as well, everything they’d shared and built. All those fragile new hopes would be blown away like dust.
    “All right.”
    “Give me a minute.” He pressed the tape into her hands. “Go on in around the other side of the house. I’ll be right there.”
    It wasn’t easy to go in, to open the door and enter the room where Eve had slept and loved. It smelled of flowers, flowers and polish, and that smoldering woman scent Eve had always carried with her.
    Travers had tidied, of course. Compelled, Julia trailed her fingers over the thick satin of the sapphire bedspread. She’d chosen a coffin of the same color, Julia remembered, snatching her hand back. Was that for irony, or for comfort?
    Closing her eyes, she rested her brow against the cool wood of the carved bedpost. For a moment, just a moment, she let herself feel.
    No, it wasn’t death that surrounded her here. Only the memories of life.
    When Paul joined her, he didn’t speak. Over the past few days he had watched her grow more and more delicate. His own grief was like a small wild animal in his gut that kept clawing and chewing and ripping. Whatever form Julia’s grief took, it was slowly, insidiously sucking the life and strength from her. He poured them both a brandy, and when he spoke, his voice was deliberately cool and detached.
    “You’ll have to snap out of it soon, Jules. You’re not doing yourself or Brandon any good walking around in a trance.”
    “I’m fine.” She took the snifter, then passed it from hand to hand. “I want it over. All the way over. Once the press gets a hold of the terms of the will—”
    “We’ll deal with it.”
    “I didn’t want her money, Paul, or her property, or—”
    “Her love,” he finished. He set his glass aside to pick up the envelope. “The thing about Eve is that she always insisted on having the last word. You’re stuck with all of them.”
    Her fingers whitened on the bowl of the glass. “Do you expect that since I’ve known for a week that she was my mother, I should feel an obligation, an immediate bond, gratitude? She manipulated my life before I was born, and even now, even when she’s gone, she continues to manipulate it.”
    He ripped the envelope open, slid the tape out. “I don’t expect you to feel anything. And if you learned anything about her over the past couple of months, you know that she wouldn’t expect you to feel.” He shoved the tape into the VCR, keeping his back to her, while the jagged teeth of his own anguish snapped at him. “I can do this