Shadowfires

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1 SHOCK
    Brightness fell from the air, nearly as
tangible as rain. It rippled down windows, formed colorful puddles on
the hoods and trunks of parked cars, and imparted a wet sheen to the
leaves of trees and to the chrome on the bustling traffic that filled
the street. Miniature images of the California sun shimmered in every
reflective surface, and downtown Santa Ana was drenched in the clear
light of a late-June morning.
    When Rachael Leben exited the lobby doors of the office building
and stepped onto the sidewalk, the summer sunshine felt like warm
water on her bare arms. She closed her eyes and, for a moment, turned
her face to the heavens, bathing in the radiance, relishing it.
    “You stand there smiling as if nothing better has ever happened to
you or ever will,” Eric said sourly when he followed her out of the
building and saw her luxuriating in the June heat.
    “Please,” she said, face still tilted to the sun, “let's not have a scene.”
    “You made a fool of me in there.”
    “I certainly did not.”
    “What the hell are you trying to prove, anyway?”
    She did not respond, she was determined not to let him spoil the
lovely day. She turned and started to walk away.
    Eric stepped in front of her, blocking her way. His gray-blue eyes
usually had an icy aspect, but now his gaze was hot.
    “Let's not be childish,” she said.
    “You're not satisfied just to leave me. You've got to let the
world know you don't need me or any damn thing I can give you.”
    “No, Eric. I don't care what the world thinks of you one way or the other.”
    “You want to rub my face in it.”
    “That's not true, Eric.”
    “Oh, yes,” he said. “Hell, yes. You're just reveling in my humiliation. Wallowing in it.”
    She saw him as she had never seen him before, a pathetic man.
Previously
he'd seemed strong to her, physically, emotionally, and mentally strong, strong-willed, strongly opinionated. He was aloof, too, and sometimes cold. He could be cruel. And there had been times during their seven years of marriage when he had been as distant as the moon. But until this moment, he'd
never seemed weak or pitiable.
    “Humiliation?” she said wonderingly. “Eric, I've done you an enormous favor. Any other man would buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate.”
    They had just left the offices of
Eric's attorneys, where their divorce settlement had been negotiated with a speed that had surprised everyone but Rachael. She had startled them by arriving without an attorney of her own and by failing to press for everything to which she was entitled under California 's
community-property laws. When Eric's attorney presented a first offer, she had insisted it was too generous and had given them another set of figures that had seemed more reasonable to her.
    “ Champagne, huh?
You're going to be telling everyone you took twelve and a half million less than you deserved just so you could get a quick divorce and be done with me fast, and I'm
supposed to stand here grinning? Christ.”
    “Eric-”
    “Couldn't wait to be done with me. Cut off a goddamn arm to be done with me. And I'm
supposed to celebrate my humiliation?”
    “It's a matter of principle with me not to take more than-”
    “Principle, my ass.”
    “Eric, you know I wouldn't-”
    “Everyone'll be looking at me and saying, ‘Christ, just how insufferable must the guy have been if it was worth twelve and a half million to be rid of him!”
    “I'm not going to tell anyone what we settled for,” Rachael said.
    “Bullshit.”
    “If you think
I'd ever talk against you or gossip about you, then you know even less about me than I'd
thought.”
    Eric, twelve years her senior, had been thirty-five and worth four
million when she'd married him. Now he was forty-two, and his fortune totaled more than thirty million, and by any interpretation of California law, she was entitled to thirteen million dollars in the divorce settlement -half the wealth accumulated during their marriage. Instead, she insisted on settling for her red Mercedes 560 SL sports car, five hundred thousand dollars, and no alimony-which was approximately one twenty-sixth of what she could have claimed. She had calculated that this nest egg would give her the time and resources to decide what to do with the rest of her life and to finance whatever plans she finally made.
    Aware that passersby were staring as she and Eric confronted each
other en the sun-splashed street, Rachael said quietly, “I didn't marry you for your