Her life. Her entire life was out there on the lawn.
She looked up and saw Howard coming down the stairs.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she begged.
He walked up to her and hit her across the face. Hard. She fell to the floor and started crying. Howard had never, ever raised a hand to her before.
“I don’t know what’s happened. Just talk to me, Howard, I can fix it, I can change—”
“I know about you and Quentin.”
She shook her head. “Quentin? What are you—”
“You went to the movies last Thursday, like you always do?” he snarled. “The eight o’clock show?”
“Yes. Yes.” She didn’t understand why he was asking, what on earth he was talking about. Quentin and her? He couldn’t think that—
“But you called Quentin at nine, from your car phone? How is that possible?”
“It’s not, of course. Because I didn’t call him.” She felt a glimmer of hope—here was something concrete to which she could respond; she could find people who’d seen her in the theater, witnesses who could swear that she’d sat through the whole film. Howard would have to abandon this ridiculous fantasy he’d constructed in his mind, then, and they could pretend this had all never happened.
He was smiling.
“You didn’t call him?”
“No.”
“Then how do you explain this?”
He held a piece of paper up in front of her face. A phone bill. Her cell phone bill.
She looked at the call he’d circled and felt her knees go weak.
“There’s an explanation,” she said weakly.
“Sure there is. You were fucking him. You were fucking my best friend.”
“No, of course not. I . . .” She hesitated. Quentin had made her promise never to tell, but she had to now. It was her life; he’d understand. “Howard.” She forced herself to smile, ha-ha, this was all so ridiculous, just a ridiculous misunderstanding. “Darling. That would be a little hard to accomplish, since Quentin—”
“Hard to accomplish now, true.”
Saint drew back the curtain that led to the study.
There, on the floor of the study, was the body of Quentin Glass wrapped up in a rug. Livia hadn’t seen a lot of dead bodies, but she knew she was looking at one now.
She gasped. “Oh my God. Howard?”
He thrust another piece of paper into her face.
“And you really should pay your parking tickets.”
“My parking tickets? What . . .” She looked at the citation. Her Jaguar. The Wyndham Hotel. Last week, nine o’clock . . .
Thursday.
“No.” She tried to smile again but couldn’t. “This is . . . Howard, I don’t know what . . . you thought we . . . Quentin and I? Howard. Quentin was gay.”
The rage in her husband’s eyes was dreadful to behold.
“You’ll say anything now, won’t you?”
He shoved something shiny in her face.
The missing earring.
“This,” he said, gritting his teeth, “was . . . in . . . his . . . bedroom.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Howard, I was just—you can call the club—”
Howard spun on his heel.
“Bring her,” he said, and Livia Saint felt an elbow on her arm then. She started crying again as Lincoln dragged her to the limo, using no more care than he would have with a sack of potatoes.
He put the bitch in the backseat, next to Lincoln.
He sat facing them, for a couple reasons. One, so he could watch her react, as she realized where they were headed. Two, so he wouldn’t have to touch any part of her body with his. So he wouldn’t have to smell it, that perfume that he’d bought her by the gallon, the same smell he’d found on Quentin Glass’s pillow.
Okay. Three reasons.
“Howard,” she said again. “You have to listen to me.”
Lincoln raised a hand—the same hand he’d already struck her with twice during the ride, when she’d tried this Quentin-was-gay crap on him—and Livia shut her mouth. What kind of fool did she think he was, Saint wondered, that he could be friends with a man thirty years, be closer to him than a brother, and not know he was a fruit?
The limo slowed. Ah. Here they were.
“Recognize the neighborhood, Livia? Ybor City? Little Cuba? I saw you for the first time three blocks from here.”
She was crying.
Saint smiled. “Twenty-three years ago, it had color. Now it’s only for hookers. You’ll fit right in.”
The limo pulled over.
“What do you want me to do, Howard?” she asked. “Just tell me—I’ll do it. Whatever you want.”
He nodded to the door. Lincoln reached across her and opened it.
“I want you to get out, Livia. That’s what I want.”
Mascara ran down her face. “Howard, I beg you. Our son—don’t do this, think about John—”
He raised a hand. “Not
A look of absolute despair crossed her face. “You can’t do that!”
“Can’t do that?” He felt a rush of fury. “After what you did, you’re gonna tell me what I can and can’t do? You fuckin’ . . .”
He dragged her out of the car and threw her to the ground. Threw her into the gutter, where she belonged, and dragged her through it. The whole time she kept screaming his name, just like she used to when they had sex. Howard this, Howard that, probably used the exact same words with Quentin.
She clawed at his leg, sobbing hysterically.
He reached down and ripped the wedding ring off her finger.
“Don’t do this!” she screamed.
“You did it to yourself.” He got back in the limo.
Lincoln didn’t say a word.
Worowski was driving. He turned around. “Where to, boss?”
“The club. But take thirty-one, Carl. And stop at the overpass.”
“Yes, sir.”
They pulled away from the curb. Livia had gotten to her feet and was watching them drive away, her chest heaving. Crying, all hysterical . . .
Saint shook his head.
He knew Livia. She would stand there, feeling sorry for herself for a few minutes, but just a few minutes. Then she would start to get pissed, and she would find a phone. She would call one of her friends, who would come pick her up, and she’d be clean and safe and in a nice warm house an hour from now. And tomorrow morning, he would get a call from her lawyer, who would propose some very harsh divorce terms, and allege a lot of things that would, of course, have to come out in court if a mutually agreeable settlement could not be reached.
Too bad for Livia there wasn’t going to be any tomorrow morning.
Bastard. Stupid, selfish bastard. He was thinking with his balls, not his head. His fucking male ego . . . how did he think a nasty divorce was going to play out with his precious Bobby Chadwick? Or the voters of Florida, for that matter? Because after what he’d done to her tonight, there was for sure going to be a very nasty divorce in Howard Saint’s future.
Footsteps sounded behind her. Livia turned and saw two men coming out from the shadows, and she
