A Dangerous Widow (A Dangerous Series) Read Free Page A

her voice when she said,
“I asked you to take me to my husband.   He’s alone now.   Do you even
understand how awful that is?   To be
surrounded by people who don’t know or love him?   Take me to him, or I’ll go by
myself.   I will not have him lying
alone.   Right now, he needs me just
as much as I need him.”  

 
 
    *   *   *

 
 
    Since the enormous, curving staircase
emptied into the marble-tiled foyer, the first thing Kate saw when she stepped
into the space wasn’t the men and women in uniform who stopped to face her
while they removed their hats.
    Instead, it was the plain white sheet that
had been placed over Michael’s body at the foot of the stairs.
    She’d know his body anywhere—even in
death and concealed by a sheet.   After all, in their own bed, how many times over the years had she woken
to find him lying on his stomach, arms stretched out on either side of him,
legs sprawled out as if he alone owned the bed?
    And with his head turned to the
right—as it appeared to be now?  
    Michael was indeed beneath that sheet, but
this time she wouldn’t be able to wake him.   This time she wouldn’t be able to wish
him good morning and slink out of bed to make them coffee so he could enjoy
another ten minutes of sleep.   This
time there would be no other times between them—all of that was over now
and their lives together were finished—which had seemed unreal to her
when his death was first announced to her, but which now felt real to her in
ways that made her close her eyes in pain and lean on Anna.
    “Do you have family here, Kate?   Somebody we can call?   To help you through this?”
    “All of my family is in Vermont.”
    “Can I call any of them for you?”
    “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll do that
myself—when all of you are gone.”
    “As for Michael?”
    “His parents are closer, but they don’t live
in Manhattan.   They live in upstate
New York.”   She looked at Anna.   “Have they been notified about what’s
happened?”
    “I tried to call his parents, but I got no
answer.”
    “His parents are mall walkers,” Kate
said.   “They walk three miles every
day around this time, so they very well might be at the mall and unaware of any
of this.   And I hope that’s the
case.   I want to tell them
myself.   But right now, if it’s OK,
I’d like to be alone with my husband.   Has everyone here finished?   Can I go over to him now?   Touch him?   Be with him?”
    “You can.”
    “Would it be too much to ask for the room to
be cleared so Michael and I can be alone together?”
    “I’m afraid that, due to protocol, at least
one of us needs to be here.”
    “Can that person be you?”
    “It can.”
    “I’d appreciate that.”
    “Then let me take care of that.”
    When Anna did, Kate walked over to the sheet
covering Michael.   At first, because
there were so many people in her house—strangers she didn’t know or want
to know—she thought that she might get through this without completely
breaking down.   As a New Englander,
it was in her roots not to do so.
    But that wasn’t the case now.
    The moment she touched Michael’s back and
felt the chill of his skin through the thin sheet, she put her hand to her
mouth and began to cry in ways that she hadn’t cried since…ever.  
    With heaving sobs—and with the reality
that the love of her life was dead because of some fucking accident with their
dog—all she could do was lay herself over the sheet, and press herself
against Michael’s body.  
    She draped herself over him, and when she
did, she felt how stiff his body already was becoming, which stabbed at her
heart again.   She then gently lifted
the sheet away from his face and saw his dead eyes, wide open and staring at
some point just beyond her.   Gone
were the deep blue eyes she knew so well—now, they were only wide pools
of black as his pupils had become fully dilated in death.
    “Michael,” she said.   “Oh, my