Shadowfires

century B.C. The ancient was intermixed with the new in wildly unconventional but striking arrangements. Here, a nineteenth-century Kirman panel recording the lives of the greatest shahs of Persia. Here, a bold Mark Rothko canvas featuring only broad bands of color. There, a pair of Lalique crystal-deer consoles, each holding an exquisite Ming vase. The effect was both breathtaking and jarring — and altogether more like a museum than a real home.

Although he had known Rachael was married to a wealthy man, and although he had known that she had become a very wealthy widow as of this morning, Ben had given no thought to what her wealth might mean to their relationship. Now her new status impinged upon him like an elbow in his side, making him uncomfortable. Rich. Rachael was very damn rich. For the first time, that thought had meaning for him.

He realized he'd need to sit down and think about it at length, and he would need to talk with her forthrightly about the influence of so much money, about the changes for better and worse that it might cause between them. However, this was neither the time nor the place to pursue the matter, and he decided to put it out of his mind for the moment. That was not easy. A fortune in tens of millions was a powerful magnet relentlessly drawing the mind regardless of how many other urgent matters required attention.

“You lived here six years?” he asked disbelievingly as they moved through the cool sterile rooms, past the precisely arranged displays.

“Yes,” she said, relaxing slightly as they roamed deeper into the house without encountering a threat of any kind. “Six long years.”

As they inspected the white vaulted chambers, the place began to seem less like a house and more like a great mass of ice in which some primeval catastrophe had embedded scores of gorgeous artifacts from another, earlier civilization.

He said, “It seems… forbidding.”

“Eric didn't care about having a real home — a cozy, livable home, I mean. He never was much aware of his surroundings anyway. He lived in the future, not the present. All he wanted of his house was that it serve as a monument to his success, and that's what you see here.”

“I'd expect to see your touch — your sensual style — everywhere, somewhere, but it's nowhere in sight.”

“Eric allowed no changes in decor,” she said.

“And you could live with that?”

“I did, yes.”

“I can't picture you being happy in such a chilly place.”

“Oh, it wasn't that bad. Really, it wasn't. There are many amazingly beautiful things here. Any one of them can occupy hours of study… contemplation… and provide great pleasure, even spiritual pleasure.”

He always marveled at how Rachael routinely found the positive aspect of even difficult circumstances. She wrung every drop of enjoyment and delight from a situation and did her best to ignore the unpleasant aspects. Her present-focused, pleasure-oriented personality was an effective armor against the vicissitudes of life.

At the rear of the ground floor, in the billiards room that looked out upon the swimming pool, the largest object on display was an intricately carved, claw-footed, late-nineteenth-century billiards table that boasted teak rails inlaid with semiprecious stones.

“Eric never played,” Rachael said. “Never held a cue stick in his hands. All he cared about was that the table is one of a kind and that it cost more than thirty thousand dollars. The overhead lights aren't positioned to facilitate play; they're aimed to present the table to its best advantage.”

“The more I see of this place, the better I understand him,” Ben said, “but the less able I am to grasp why you ever married him.”

“I was young, unsure of myself, perhaps looking for the father figure that'd always been missing in my life. He was so calm. He had such tremendous self-assurance. In him, I saw a man of power, a man who could carve out a niche for himself, a ledge on the mountainside where I could find stability, safety. At the time, I thought that was all I wanted.”

Implicit in those words was the admission that her childhood and adolescence had been difficult at best, confirming a suspicion Ben had harbored for months. She seldom spoke of her parents or of her school years, and Ben believed that those formative experiences had been so negative as to leave her with a loathing for the past, a distrust of the uncertain future, and a defensive ability to focus intently upon whatever great or meager joys the moment offered.

He wanted to pursue that subject now, but before he could say anything, the mood abruptly changed. A sense of imminent danger had hung heavy in the air upon their entrance, then had faded as they progressed from one deserted white room to another with the growing conviction that no intruder lurked within the house. Rachael had stopped pointing the pistol ahead of her and had been holding it at her side with the muzzle aimed at the floor. But now the threatening atmosphere clouded the air again when she spotted three distinct fingerprints and a portion of a palmprint on one arm of a sofa, etched into the snowy fabric in a burgundy-dark substance which, on closer inspection, looked as if it might be blood.

She crouched beside the sofa, peering closely at the prints, and Ben saw her shiver. In a tremulous whisper she said, “Been here, damn it. I was afraid of this. Oh, God. Something's happened here.” She touched one finger to the ugly stain, instantly snatched her hand away, and shuddered. “Damp. My God, it's damp.”

“Who's been here?” Ben asked. “What's happened?”

She stared at the tip of her finger, the one with which she had touched the stain, and her face was distorted with horror. Slowly she raised her eyes and looked at Ben, who had stooped beside her, and for a moment he thought her terror had reached such a peak that she was prepared, at last, to tell him everything and seek his help. But after a moment he could see the resolve and self-control flooding back into her gaze and into her lovely face.

She said, “Come on. Let's check out the rest of the house. And for God's sake, be careful.”

He followed her as she resumed her search. Again she held the pistol in front of her.

In the huge kitchen, which was nearly as well equipped as that of a major restaurant, they found broken glass scattered across the floor. One pane had been smashed out of the French door that opened onto the patio.

“An alarm system's no good if you don't use it,” Ben said. “Why would Eric go off and leave a house like this unprotected?”

She didn't answer.

He said, “And doesn't a man like him have servants in residence?”

“Yes. A nice live-in couple with an apartment over the garage.”

“Where are they? Wouldn't they have heard a break-in?”

“They're off Monday and Tuesday,” she said. “They often drive up to Santa Barbara to spend the time with their daughter's family.”

“Forced entry,” Ben said, lightly kicking a shard of glass across the tile floor. “Okay, now hadn't we better call the police?”

She merely said, “Let's look upstairs.” As the sofa had been stained with blood, so her voice was stained with anxiety. But worse: there was a bleakness about her, a grim and sombrous air, that made it easy to believe she might never laugh again.

The thought of Rachael without laughter was unbearable.

They climbed the stairs with caution, entered the upstairs hall, and checked out the second-floor rooms with the wariness they might have shown if unraveling a mile of tangled rope with the knowledge that a poisonous serpent lay concealed in the snarled line.

At first nothing was out of order, and they discovered nothing untoward — until they entered the master bedroom, where all was chaos. The contents of the walk-in closet — shirts, slacks, sweaters, shoes, suits, ties, and more — lay in a torn and tangled mess. Sheets, a white quilted spread, and feather-leaking pillows were strewn across the floor. The mattress had been heaved off the springs, which had been knocked halfway off the frame. Two black ceramic lamps were smashed, the shades ripped and then apparently stomped. Enormously valuable paintings