Mrs Ashford is Dead

did not

ard his footsteps go down the corridor to the far end of the house, and a door close. Idris was already in the chair outside my room, and

't rem

my father's funeral, my wedding, every number in every ledger I had ever checked. What the blo

ghting it an

s lights to smears. I had been at the kitchen island in the penthouse, a hal

ri

of it. I can't say it on the phone. Can you meet

what's h

n the

a secret from my husband about irregular freight payments with Victor Ashford's initials in the margin. I disliked the habit in myself becaus

ut the office and dr

concrete ramps in thin, bright lines. Corinne was waiting by a pillar with her coat collar up and her we

. He likes to know where I am. I walked here." She looked at my car, then at m

re sh

are

n trembling on the keys since

The wipers beat. The city fell away behind us into black wa

bend, she spoke without ta

me you

ha

pocket. Hol

ng small and hard drop into the pocket, and th

verything's in it. The ledger, the dates, a recor

inne

se it. Pr

aid. "Nothing is

catch the dashboard light. Edmund's eyes. It struck me then, as it had at every one of our four

. "Remember that word. E

Tell me w

't tell

ipers

came out too careful

I know he is. But I don't k

he long bend a

her foot o

ng ha

thm, a note of wrongness in the engine. She pressed again,

he said. "The

mp

ing to t

ard my own voice screaming, and Corinne's voice saying my name over and over, and the sound of metal

eat. I reme

mbered

A voice in my ear, steady in the middle of the r

ri

not shut out. Corinne, still shou

wet and my fist closed so hard around the b

g time, breathing car

he way I know a sum. Someone had gone near that car and done something to its brakes. Someone

fraid of Victor, had not be

slowly, and on the third

you, Mrs

ad been

enough to reach through broken glass and a burning frame. The coast road was a dark, empty

Idris had be

m the car park or from the penthouse. And Idris work

etery, and how quickly he had reached me. He had been watc

ke before tonight," he h

rding my grave. He

d keep it in the coat I had worn out of the clinic, and I

ame throug

oor, so quiet that at first I thought I was imagining it. Then Lucian's,

road," he said, "she'l

, almost too low to c

t y

idor toward the room at the far e

that opened a box I had not yet found, and wondered wh