Shadowfires

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 thrown 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 copper-brown 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 know 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. But lots of business associates, you know.
God, I'm not looking forward to the chore.”
    “I have my cellular phone in the car,” Ben said. “I can help you
call them. We'll get it done fast.”
    She smiled vaguely. “And just how would that look-the wife's boyfriend helping her contact the bereaved?”
    “They don't have to know who I am. I'll just say I'm a friend of the family.”
    “Since I'm all that's left of the family,” Rachael said, “I guess
that wouldn't be a lie. You're my best friend in the world,
Benny.”
    “More than just a friend.”
    “Oh, yes.”
    “Much more, I hope”
    “I hope,” she said.
    She kissed him lightly and, for a moment, rested her head upon his
shoulder.
They contacted all of
Eric's friends and business associates by eight-thirty, at which time Rachael expressed surprise that she was hungry. “After a day like this and everything that I saw… isn't
it sort of hard-boiled of me to have an appetite?”
    “Not at all,” Ben said gently. “Life goes on, babe. The living
have got to live. Fact is, I read somewhere that witnesses to sudden
and violent death usually experience a sharp increase in all their
appetites during the days and weeks that follow.”
    “Proving to themselves that they're alive.”
    “Trumpeting it.”
    She said, “I can't