THE PAIN OF OTHERS Read Online Free PDF Page B

The barkeep set another Powers in front of him and took away his cold, untouched dinner plate.
    “You have no idea what you’ve done,” he said.
    “I’m going back to your house,” Letty said. “Tonight. Am I going to find her dead? Why won’t you tell me, instead of sitting here in denial, pretending none of this has happened?”
    Chase stared down the length of the bar for a full minute, then rubbed his palms into his eyes, smearing a bit of eyeliner.
    Another greedy sip of Powers and he said, “I met Daphne after my first wife died. Skyler was two, and my parents kept him for a week, made me take a trip. We met in Oranjestad . You know Aruba? She could be so engaging when she wanted to be.
    “We’d been married a year when I caught the first glimpse of what she really was. Friend of ours had gotten divorced and Daphne was consoling her on the telephone. It was a small thing, but I suddenly realized what she was doing. My wife had this way of talking to you so you’d think she was comforting you when she was actually salting your wounds. I saw her do it again and again. Even with me. With my son. It was like the pain of others attracted her. Filled her up with this black joy. Please,” he slurred. “Don’t go back there. Just leave it alone.”
    “So it turns out your wife’s a bitch after all, and you want her dead. That’s so original.” Letty had a strong desire to take the Beretta 84 pistol out of her purse and jam it into Chase’s ribs, make him come along with her, rub his face in whatever he’d done. Instead, she climbed down from the barstool, said, “Have a wonderful night of freedom, Chase. It may be your last.”
     
    Letty parked her 4Runner in the cul-de-sac and walked up the driveway toward the Rochefort residence. The rain had further dissolved into a cold, fine mist, and all she could see of the Victorian was the lamplight that pushed through a row of tall, arched windows on the second floor. At the front door, she peered through a panel of stained glass, saw a sliver of the lowlit hallway—empty.
    She knocked on the door and waited, but no one came.
    The third window on the covered porch slid open. She lifted the shade, saw the living room illuminated by a sole piano lamp on the baby grand. Climbed over the back of the upholstered sofa and closed the window behind her.
    “Daphne?”
    The hardwood groaned under her footsteps as she moved through the living room and up the stairs. The bed in the master suite looked slept in, covers thrown back, sheets wrinkled, clothes hanging off the sides.
    Letty went downstairs into the kitchen, and as she stared into a sinkful of dirty dishes, noticed the music—some soothing adagios—drifting up from a remote corner of the house.
    She walked around the island to a closed door near the breakfast nook.
    Opened it. The music strengthening.
    Steps descended into a subterranean level of the residence, and she followed them down until she reached a checkerboard floor made of limestone composite. To the left, a washing machine and dryer stood in the utility alcove surrounded by hampers of unwashed laundry that reeked of mildew.
    Letty went right, the music getting louder.
    Rounded a corner and stopped.
    The brick room was twenty-by-twenty feet and lined with metal wineracks , the top rows of bottles glazed with dust.
    Beside an easel lay a Bose CD player, a set of Wusthof kitchen knives, and boxes of gauze and bandages. Hanging from the ceiling of the wine cellar by a chain under her arms— Letty’s eyes welled up—Daphne.
    Then the lifeless body shifted and released a pitiful wail.
    Letty recognized the tattoo of the strangling hands as Arnold LeBreck painfully lifted his head and fixed his eyes upon Letty , and then something behind her.
    Letty’s stomach fell.
    She spun around.
    Daphne stood five feet away wearing a black rubber apron streaked with paint or blood and a white surgical mask, her black hair pinned up except for a few loose strands