Cold Ridge. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ what I’m saying. Having a good lunch hour?”

      “An excellent lunch hour.”

      “Me, too. See you over on Comm. Ave.”

      His car merged back into the Newbury Street traffic. Carine continued on up to Exeter Street, then cut down it to Commonwealth Avenue. With its center mall and stately Victorian buildings, it was the quintessential street of Boston’s Back Bay, all of which was on reclaimed land that used to be under water—hence its name.

      Still in no hurry, she sat on a bench on the mall, famous for its early springtime pink magnolias, now long gone. A toddler ran after a flutter of pigeons, and Carine tried not to think about the babies she’d meant to have with Ty, but, nonetheless, felt a momentary pang of regret. The toddler’s mother scooped him up and swung him in the brisk November air, then set him back in his stroller. He was ticked off and started to kick and scream. He wanted to chase more pigeons. Two months ago—a month ago—the scene would have made Carine cry, but now she smiled. Progress, she thought.

      She walked across the westbound lane to the historic brick-front mansion the Rancourts had snapped up when it came onto the market eighteen months ago. It was a rare find. Its longtime owner, now dead, had never carved it up into apartments, in fact, had done few renovations—many of the house’s original features were still intact. Hardwood floors, ornate moldings, marble fireplaces, chandeliers, wainscoting, fixtures. It had taken most of the past eighteen months for the team of architects, preservationists, designers and contractors just to come up with the right plans for what to do.

      Carine’s job photographing the renovations could easily take her through the winter, while still leaving room for her to pursue other projects. She’d been at it for six weeks. Work would happen in a frenzy for a few days, the place crawling with people. Then everyone would vanish, and nothing would happen for a morning, an afternoon, even a week. That left her with spurts of time she could put to use doing something more productive than drinking lattes and window shopping.

      She noticed Louis Sanborn’s car parked out front and smiled, shaking her head. Leave Louis to find a convenient parking space—she never could, and almost always walked or took public transportation in the city.

      Since she’d left for lunch, someone had set out a pot of yellow mums on the front stoop; the wrought-iron rail was cool to the touch as she mounted the steps to the massive dark wood door. It was open a crack, and she pushed it with her shoulder and went in, immediately tossing her latte cup into an ugly green plastic trash bin just inside the door. Sweeping, graceful stairs rose up to the second floor of the five-story house. She’d never been in any place like it. Not one inch of it reminded her of her little log cabin with its rustic ladder up to the loft.

      “Hello?” she called. “Anyone here?”

      Her footsteps echoed on the age-darkened cherry floor of the center hall. To her left was a formal drawing room with a marble fireplace and a crystal chandelier, then a smaller room and the library. There was even an elegant ballroom on the second floor. The Rancourts had promised to invite Carine the first time they used it, teasing her that they wanted to see her in sequins.

      She retrieved her camera from a cold, old-fashioned radiator in the hall. There had to be someone around. Nobody would leave the door open with the place empty.

      “Louis? Are you here? It’s me, Carine.”

      He could be upstairs, she thought, slinging her camera bag over her shoulder. She’d assumed workers would be in this afternoon, but she didn’t keep close track of their comings and goings. As she turned to head back to the front entry, something caught her eye in the library. She wasn’t sure what—something out of place. Wrong.

      She took a shallow breath, and it was as if a force stronger than she was compelled her to take a step forward and peer through the double doorway. Restoration work hadn’t started yet in the library. Intense discussions were still under way over whether it was worth the expense to have its yellowed wallpaper, possibly original to the house, copied.

      Carine touched the wood molding, telling herself she must have simply seen a shadow or a stray drop cloth. Then she jumped back, inhaling sharply, even as her mind struggled to take in what she was seeing—a man facedown on the wood floor. Louis. She recognized his dark suit, his scrub-brush hair. She lunged forward, but stopped abruptly, almost instinctively.

      A pool of something dark, a liquid, oozed toward her. She stood motionless, refusing to absorb what she was seeing.

      Blood.

      It seeped into the cracks in the narrow-board floor. It covered Louis’s outstretched hand.

      Help…

      She couldn’t speak. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

      His hair…his hand…in the blood…

      “Oh, God, oh, God—Louis!” Carine leaped forward, yelling back over her shoulder. “Help! Help, someone’s hurt!”

      She avoided stepping in the blood. It wasn’t easy—there was so much of it. Louis…he can’t be dead. I just saw him!

      She had only rudimentary first aid skills. She wasn’t an ER doctor like her sister or a highly trained combat paramedic like North and Manny Carrera. But they weren’t here, and she forced herself to kneel beside Louis Sanborn and control her horror and fear as she touched two fingers to his carotid artery. That was it, wasn’t it? Arteries beat with the heart. Veins didn’t. To see if he had a pulse, she had to find an artery.

      There was no pulse, not with that much blood.

      “Louis. Oh, God.”

      She looked around the empty room, her voice echoing as she yelled again for help. Had he fallen and landed on a sharp object—a stray chisel or a saw, or something? The back of his suit was unmarred. No blood, no torn fabric. Whatever injury he had must have been in front. But she didn’t dare turn him over, touch him further.

      She rose shakily. No one had come in answer to her yells for help. Louis Sanborn was dead. She was alone. She absorbed the reality of her situation in short bursts of awareness, as if she couldn’t take it all in at once.

      Hey, Ms. Photographer, need a ride over to the big house?

      What if she’d said yes? Could she have saved his life? Or would she be dead, too?

      How had he died?

      What if it wasn’t an accident?

      It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t.

      She ran into the hall, her camera bag bouncing on her hip. Where was her cell phone? She needed to call the police, an ambulance. She dug in the pocket of her barn coat, finding her phone, but she couldn’t hang on to it and dropped it on the hardwood floor, startling herself. She scooped it up, hardly pausing as she came to the front hall.

      The front door stood wide open. She thought she’d shut it when she got back from lunch. Was someone else here?

      She could feel the cool November air.

      “Help!”

      She looked down at her cell phone, realized it wasn’t on. She hit the Power button and ran onto the front stoop, knocking over the pot of mums, СКАЧАТЬ