Bloodfire by John Lutz Read Free Book Online

seen enough of it and was undoubtedly going to see more. He wanted as little as possible of it to be his. Selfish? Maybe. Or maybe more like self-preservation. Edwina had felt the same way a few years ago, after her own disastrous marriage and rebound love affair. Since then she’d healed. Carver hadn’t. That simple.
    He finished his third beer, paid his check, and limped out to the parking lot, where he stood and smoked a Swisher Sweet cigar. Cars carrying the supper crowd were pulling in from the highway and parking. He listened to gravel crunching beneath tires and shoes, and watched people, usually in pairs, stride into the restaurant.
    Finally he flicked the glowing cigar butt out toward the ocean, watching it streak against the gray sky and fall just on the other side of the guardrail.
    Then he got in the Olds and drove to Edwina’s house, where now he lived only part of the time.
    Her Mercedes, which she’d left in a park-and-fly lot at the airport, was in the driveway nosed against the closed garage door. The palm fronds overhead, swaying in the breeze, sent faint shadows over the car’s roof and hood. Carver braked the Olds next to it and made plenty of noise slamming the door and dragging his cane so she’d know he was coming. As if he didn’t want to surprise her with a new lover, though he was sure there wasn’t one.
    She’d been home awhile. She’d changed from her career-woman outfit into Levi’s and a sleeveless white blouse. Her thick auburn hair, worn often in a bun these days, fell to below her shoulders. Her gray eyes surveyed him with pinpoints of pain. She looked older, as if the gloom of the evening had seeped into her mind. The strain between them was showing on her.
    Seated on the living room sofa with one of the lemonade-and-gin drinks she favored, she said, “I phoned your cottage and you weren’t there. Wondered where you were.”
    He crossed the room halfway and leaned on his cane. “Had to drive into Orlando on business.”
    She sipped at her spiked lemonade, then licked her lips sensuously. If he didn’t know better he might have guessed she was flirting. “I thought we might go out for supper. The stuff they served on the plane tasted like plastic and I only nibbled at it.”
    “Wish I’d known,” Carver said. “I stopped and ate on the drive back.”
    No change of expression. “Doesn’t matter. Plenty of frozen dinners out there.” She motioned with her head in the direction of the kitchen, more a direct stare and a ducking of her chin than a sideways tilt. It caused something to tighten around Carver’s heart. She was beautiful when she did that; it was a gesture exclusively hers.
    He limped to the wing chair and sat down, stiff leg extended in front of him, cane resting against his thigh. The heel of his moccasin was digging into the carpet. “So how’d the real-estate conference go?”
    She smiled. “The way they always do. Speeches, panels, luncheons, cocktail parties. General business shmoozing. Some misbehaving by those foolish enough to mix work and play.”
    “Hear any more about the Hawaiian project?”
    He shouldn’t have asked. Tension crept like a shadow onto her face, stiffening her cheeks. Her smooth, fighter’s jaw jutted farther out almost imperceptibly, but Carver noticed; he knew her moods, even if he didn’t understand her completely. She said, “They’re still going to build it, if that’s what you mean.”
    “I guess that’s pretty much what I meant.”
    She stood up too quickly, then paced in an irregular pattern over the blue carpet, holding her glass delicately as if it were brimming with liquid instead of half empty. “You know, Fred—”
    “What?” He couldn’t help interrupting her, and loudly. Knowing as he did so that they were too damned combative tonight. War was in the air.
    She must have sensed the same mood. She said, “Nothing. What’s the new case about?”
    “Didn’t say I had a new case.”
    “When I left for