He unlocked the door, stepped into the wide, gracious foyer. Turning to the alarm pad, he keyed in the code. If she’d changed it, he had his ID, listing his name and this address. He’d already worked out how to handle any police or security questions.
He’d simply say his wife had changed the code—true enough—and he’d forgotten it.
But she hadn’t. The fact that she hadn’t was both relief and insult. She thought she knew him so well, was so sure he’d never enter the house that was half his without her permission. He’d agreed to move out, to give them both some space, so he’d never intrude, never push too hard.
She assumed he’d be fucking civilized.
She was soon to discover she didn’t know him at all.
He stood a moment, absorbing the quiet of the house, the feel of it. All those neutral tones serving as a backdrop of splashes and flashes of color, the mix of old, new, cleverly quirky adding style.
She was good at it, he could admit that. She knew how to present herself, her home, knew how to arrange successful parties. There had been some good times here, spikes of happiness, stretches of contentment, moments of easy compatibility, some good sex, some lazy Sunday mornings.
How did it all go so wrong?
“Screw it,” he muttered.
Get in, get out, he told himself. Being in the house just depressed him. He went upstairs, directly to the sitting room off the master bedroom—noted she had an overnight bag on the luggage rack, half packed.
She could go wherever the hell she wanted to go, he thought, with or without her lover.
Eli focused in on what he’d come for. Inside the closet, he keyed in the combination for the safe. He ignored the stack of cash, the documents, the jewelry cases holding pieces he’d given her over the years, or she’d bought for herself.
Just the ring, he told himself. The Landon ring. He checked the box, watched it wink and flash in the light, then shoved it into the pocket of his jacket. Once the safe was secured again and he started back down, it occurred to him he should’ve brought bubble wrap or some protection for the painting.
He’d grab some towels, he decided, something to shield it from the rain. He took a couple of bath sheets from the linen closet, kept going.
In and out, he told himself again. He hadn’t known how much he wanted out of that house, away from the memories—good and bad.
In the living room he took the painting off the wall. He’d bought it on their honeymoon because Lindsay had been so taken with it, with the sun-washed colors, the charm and simplicity of a field of sunflowers backed by olive groves.
They’d bought other art since, he thought as he wrapped the towels around it. Paintings, sculptures, pottery certainly of greater value. They could all go in the communal pile, all be part of the mechanism of negotiation. But not this.
He laid the padded painting on the sofa, moved through the living area with the storm slashing overhead. He wondered if she was driving in it, on her way home to finish packing for the overnight trip with her lover.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he murmured. Because first thing in the morning, he was calling his divorce attorney and letting him off the leash.
From now on, he intended to go for the throat.
He turned into the room they’d fashioned into a library and, as he started to hit the light switch, saw her in a shuddering burst of icy lightning.
From that moment to the answering bellow of thunder, his mind went blank.
“Lindsay?”
He slapped at the switch as he lurched forward. Inside him waged a war between what he saw and what he could accept.
She lay on her side in front of the hearth. Blood, so much blood on the white marble, the dark floor.
Her eyes, that rich chocolate that had so captivated him once, were filmed glass.
“Lindsay.”
He dropped down beside her, took the hand stretched out on the floor as if reaching. And found her cold.
In Bluff House, Eli woke, dragging himself out of the blood and shock of the recurring dream and into sunlight.
For a moment he just sat as he’d reared up, disoriented, hazy. He stared around the room, remembering as his thumping heart leveled again.
Bluff House. He’d come to Bluff House.
Lindsay had been dead nearly a year. The house in the Back Bay was