Revenge of Innocents by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg Read Free Book Online Page B

from. With this many rug rats, Veronica and I either can’t find the time to have sex or we’re too exhausted.”
    He was still using the present tense, Carolyn noticed. He should have gone to the morgue instead of her. He seemed to be dealing with his wife’s death as if it were a temporary situation, something along the lines of having your car repossessed. It made you feel lousy, but you could take out a second mortgage on the house, make up the back payments, and everything would be fine.
    “How did she look?” he asked. “Was it bad?”
    “Yes,” Carolyn said, staring at a raggedy teddy bear on the floor and thinking how sad it looked. Her mind went blank, blocking out the terrible image of Veronica’s blood-splattered body.
    She shrieked when she felt someone pulling on her hand, believing she was at the morgue and Veronica had reached out and grabbed her. “You startled me,” she said, seeing Marcus standing over her. At six-one, he had dark hair and hazel eyes with flecks of green in them. His hooded lids gave him a seductive look. Bedroom eyes, her mother used to call them. “I must have dosed off.”
    “Have you been on the floor all night?”
    “I woke up early. I got out of bed because I didn’t want to wake you.”
    Marcus yawned, then stretched his back. “Jump in the shower while I make you some breakfast.”
    Carolyn let him help her to her feet, then wrapped her arms around his waist. “Oh, Marcus,” she sobbed, her head pressed against his chest. “It was so awful. One side of her head was gone.”
    He rubbed the center of her back. “Just relax, okay? You’re exhausted. How is Drew holding up?”
    “I’m not sure,” she said, clasping the lapels on his plaid cotton robe. “I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet. He couldn’t find Jude last night. I need to call and see if she came home.”
    “Not until you get some food in you,” Marcus insisted. “An hour won’t make any difference, Carolyn. This isn’t going to be over in a day. You need your strength. Are you going to be able to take a day off to get yourself together, or do you have to go to the office? We have a meeting scheduled with the caterers tonight at six.”
    “I have to work.” Carolyn began to panic, speaking so fast her mind didn’t have time to keep up with her mouth. “There’s no one else to run the…I’ll have to find someone to take over Veronica’s…we’re already slammed…The new people can’t handle the serious cases.”
    “Calm down,” Marcus said, tilting her chin up and kissing her. “When something like this happens, the best thing you can do is to go about your business. Although it might be better if you stayed at home and got some rest, you’d probably spend the day thinking about Veronica.”
    “We have to cancel the wedding. Please, I don’t want what should be the happiest day of my life to take place now. We’ll pick another date…maybe next month, or after the first of the year. Your secretary should start calling people today. They’ll understand when she explains. Most of my friends know Veronica. If we don’t postpone it, we’ll turn our wedding into a funeral.” She saw the look on disappointment on his face. “I can’t go to meetings with caterers, Marcus. I’m not sure I can get through today, let alone a wedding.”
    “Why don’t we wait a few days?” he said. “See how you feel then. We’ve already booked our trip. The airline tickets arrived just the other day. I don’t want to bring money into the picture, but we’re going to take a bath if we cancel.”
    “I’m not going to change my mind,” Carolyn said, telling him about the threatening letter.
    “Personally, I think it was a prank,” he told her. “People do sick things. I’ve received death threats before, one allegedly from a Middle Eastern terrorist group. That’s the world we live in today, honey. Intimidation and fear rule, but only if you let them.”
    Marcus owned a company