The Hidden by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online

striking color of smoked pearl, luminous with some veiled emotion … anxiety? High cheekbones, pale skin a little liquor-reddened, long, slender throat, a model’s slim figure. But her beauty was the fragile kind that would fade or turn gaunt with age, and marred by lines around her mouth and faint shadows under her eyes. Shelby was just the opposite, he thought, more attractive now than when he’d married her; the strength and character in her face were lacking in Claire Lomax’s.
    “So, then,” she said. “Where are you folks from?”
    Macklin told them.
    “And you’re friends of the Coulters?”
    “Ben and I went to college together—UC Santa Cruz.”
    “We’ve met him and his wife—Kate, isn’t it?—but we don’t know them well.”
    “Kate, yes.”
    “How long are you staying? Through New Year’s?”
    “Until New Year’s Day.”
    “Good! So are we. We’ll have to get together again, maybe on New Year’s Eve.” She seemed to need to talk, as if she were afraid of dead air; her words came quickly, a little breathlessly. Macklin wondered if she was drunk. There wasn’t any doubt that Paula was. Decker, too, if less obviously. “All of us live in Santa Rosa. We’ve been here since Christmas Eve. We thought it’d be fun to spend the holidays here this year, now that the house is finished.”
    “Some fun,” Paula said. “Wackos on the loose inside and out.”
    “The only wacko in here is you,” Decker said from the bar.
    “Hurry up with those drinks, will you?”
    “Can’t rush perfection. Santa will deliver.”
    “Santa. Jesus.”
    “Ho, ho, ho.”
    Claire ignored them. “Brian’s an architect. He designed this house, everything exactly the way he wanted it. Isn’t that fireplace wonderful?”
    It was, and Macklin said so. Built of native stone, it transcribed a long, graceful curve outward from the side wall, with the hearth in the middle of the curve and open to this room and the one on the other side, probably the kitchen. The bedrooms would be along a front hallway that led off the foyer. The rest of the living room was as impressive as the fireplace, if a little too colorless for his taste. Heavy redwood ceiling beams, dark wood paneling, floors partially covered by black-and-white woven rugs. A four-foot-square painting on one wall, of a stormy, cloud-ridden sky at sunset, added a moody note. Something brighter, with primary colors, would’ve been better. So would a Christmas tree, a wreath, some kind of holiday decoration, but there were none visible anywhere.
    Lomax finally made up his mind to join them, but he didn’t sit down. He stood at a distance, like an overseer. “The house isn’t finished yet,” he said.
    “Well, it is, but Brian means little things, little touches he’s not satisfied with—”
    “I don’t like that, Claire. You know I don’t.”
    “What don’t you like?”
    “You speaking for me. Why do you keep doing it?”
    “Well, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean … Oh, good, the drinks.”
    Decker was there with a tray. Martini in a broad-rimmed glass with a lemon peel instead of olives, four mixed drinks that from their color were probably Scotch and water. He handed them out, the palest of the three to his wife, who glared at him but didn’t say anything. Lomax refused the last glass with a curt, “No, I’ve had enough for tonight.”
    “Another party pooper.”
    “Why don’t you drink what you sell, instead of swilling Scotch all the time?”
    “Ah, yes, fine California wine. How does that Omar quote go? ‘I wonder what the vintners guzzle one half so precious as the stuff they sell’?”
    “Guzzle. Very funny.”
    “Gene is a sales rep for Eagle Mountain Winery,” Claire said. “In the Russian River valley.”
    Paula made a derisive noise. “They work him like a dog too—or I should say like a son of a bitch. Would you believe even on Christmas Day, so I had to drive up here by myself?”
    Decker said, “Here we go