Hidden Riches

the theater. “Count with me now. Ten, nine . . .”
    It felt as though she were moving in slow motion, through water, warm, silky water. Her heart beat hard and high in her chest.
    “Eight, seven . . .”
    She leaned down, put her hands on Jed’s shoulders. His gripped her waist.
    “Six, five . . .”
    The walls shook. She stepped off into the air, into the colorful rain of confetti, felt his muscles ripple against her as she combed a hand through his hair and hooked her legs around him.
    “Four, three . . .”
    Inch by inch she slid down his body, her eyes locked on his, her breath already quickened.
    “Two, one . . .”
    Her mouth opened to his, hot and hungry. Their twin sounds of pleasure were drowned out in an explosion of cheers. On an incoherent murmur, she changed the angle of the kiss and dived deeper, both hands fisted in his hair.
    He continued to lower her from the stage to the ground, certain that something in him would explode—head, heart, loins. Even when she stood, her body remained molded to his in a way that gave him painful knowledge of every curve and valley.
    She tasted more dangerous than whiskey, more effervescent than champagne. He understood that a man could be drunk when he had a woman in his system.
    He took his mouth from hers but kept her firmly against him. Her eyes were half closed, her lips just parted. As he watched, her tongue slipped out to skim lightly over her lips, as if she wanted to absorb the lingering taste of him.
    “Give me another,” she murmured.
    But before he could, Quentin bounded up and swung an arm around each of them. “Happy new year, mes enfants. ” With a tilt of his head, he pitched his voice so that it flowed like wine over the din. “ ‘Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, lethim go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.’ ”
    “Tennyson,” Jed murmured, obscurely touched, and Quentin beamed at him.
    “Quite right.” He kissed Dora, then Jed, with equal enthusiasm. Before Jed could adjust to the shock, Trixie descended on them.
    “I love celebrations.” There were more kisses, lavishly given. “Will, come here and kiss your mother.”
    Will obliged, leaping dramatically off the stage and catching his mother up in a theatrical dip. He kissed his father, then he turned to Jed.
    Braced, Jed held his ground. “I don’t want to have to punch you.”
    Will only grinned. “Sorry, we’re a demonstrative bunch.” Despite the warning, he gave Jed a hard, tipsy hug. “Here’s Lea and John.”
    Thinking of survival, Jed stepped back, but found himself blocked by the stage. He gave up, accepting it philosophically when he was kissed by Lea and embraced by John—whom he’d yet to meet.
    Watching it all, and the various reactions that flickered over his face, Dora laughed and found a full glass of champagne.
    Here’s to you, Skimmerhorn. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
     
    It took DiCarlo a long, agonizing time to die. Winesap had waited patiently, while doing his best to block out the thin calls for help, the delirious prayers and the babbling sobs.
    He didn’t know how Finley had handled the servants. He didn’t want to know. But he had wished, several times during the interminable three-hour wait, that DiCarlo would do the decent thing and simply die.
    Then, when dusk began to fall and there were no more sounds from outside the solarium, Winesap wished DiCarlo had taken longer, much longer.
    He didn’t relish the task at hand.
    Sighing, he went out of the house, past the sprawled body and across the south lawn toward a stone-sided toolshed. He had inquired, meekly, if a drop cloth or sheet of plastic might be available.
    Following Finley’s instructions, Winesap located a large painter’s cloth, splattered with white. His back creaking from the weight, he shouldered the roll, returned to the garden and his grisly task.
    It was easy to block the routine from his mind. He had only to imagine it was he who lay staring sightlessly at the deepening sky, and the entire process didn’t bother him overmuch.
    He spread the cloth over the white stones. They were stained liberally with blood, sticky with it. And the flies . . . Well, all in all, Winesap mused, it was a gruesome bit of business.
    Crouching, breath whistling through his teeth, Winesap rolled DiCarlo’s limp body over and over until it was nicely centered on the cloth.
    He took a rest then. Physical labor