Fidelity by Thomas Perry Read Free Book Online

could make me a small loan, just until I can straighten things out. I haven’t been able to untangle our finances yet. Phil didn’t tell me some things I probably should have known, and it’s taking time.”
    At the word loan, she felt Sandy’s hand stop on her back, then felt her withdraw it. “That’s Dave’s field,” Sandy said. Emily could hear from her voice that she was glaring at her husband, ordering him to handle this.
    “I’d love to, Emily,” Dave said. “What we’ve got is kind of tied up right now, and locked in, but I might be able to help you out with a few ideas. I assume he had life insurance.”
    “We did at one time, term policies for both of us. But they were really for Pete, and when Pete died, I think Phil may have stopped paying the premiums.”
    Dave didn’t pause. “You’ll get his retirement, of course, and there’s no tax for you because you were his wife.” Dave looked very cheerful about that.
    Emily didn’t tell him that whatever retirement plan Phil had was gone. She just wanted this conversation to end.
    “Then there’s the house.”
    “I hadn’t thought about moving.”
    “Well, think about it now. If you’re alone, you don’t need three bedrooms, a den, and an office.” He looked around. “Even places like this have gone way, way up in the past few years. I think you’ll be surprised.”
    “I guess so. I’ll look into it. I’m sure everything will be fine.” Emily wished fervently that she had not asked them for help.
    “And then there’s Phil’s car.”
    “His car?”
    “Well, one woman doesn’t need two cars, and I assume his is the one you’ll sell. Hey! You know, we’ve been looking for a good used car for Charlotte to take to school. I’ll bet we can make a deal that’s good for both of us.”
    Emily caught Sandy wincing and shaking her head. Emily said, “The police still have it. Phil was shot in his car.”
    “Oh!” Dave said.
    Sandy rose. “Emily, we’ve just got to go. As I said, please call me if you need anything.” She bent over, patted Emily’s shoulder, and headed for the door, not looking to see whether Dave was following.
    Once a few guests had left the house, the others seemed to feel that they had been released. They began to move toward the door in numbers. If they felt any obligation to Phil Kramer, they seemed to feel that they had now discharged it; and if they felt any sympathy toward his widow, they judged that the kindest thing they could do for her was to give her a chance to rest.
    When she was alone, she lay on her bed, and closed her eyes.
    Suddenly she sat up. She couldn’t lie here like this. She had to do what she could to find out what had happened to Phil. She stepped out of her black dress, put on a pair of jeans and a pullover top, poured the contents of her small black purse into the one with the long shoulder strap that she used every day, and went down to the car. She could rest when it was her turn to be dead.

5
    Emily was in the office sitting at Phil’s desk and examining files. She remembered Phil’s peculiar filing system from the old days when she’d worked with him. He kept the bottom drawer of each filing cabinet for guns and ammunition, on the theory that if he ever needed a firearm in a hurry he would already be ducking down low behind his steel desk. The top drawers were what he called “overhead” drawers: They contained bills and payment records for utilities, the building mortgage, the time sheets and payrolls. He kept them there just to give snoopers a sniff of something real, but useless. The next set of drawers were an odd assortment of ancient billing files interspersed with files that were fake-folders full of junk mail. By the time an interloper had gone this far, he would be too tired and exasperated to face the second row of drawers from the bottom, which looked just like all of the others, but which contained real case files, past and current.
    Phil had been