Book of Shadows Read Free Page B

time.”
    “Tuna salad for me,” said Marisa. “No bread. Skim milk, maybe. The camera adds ten pounds and ten pounds is the last thing I need.”
    “How’s the show going?”
    “Well. Still number one in our time period. May we never run out of bored housewives, unemployed truck drivers, bored Gypsies, and whoever else watches soap operas.”
    “How does it feel to be America’s favorite bitch?”
    “Marvy-doo, as our new ingenue is fond of saying. I’d like to wring her neck but the twit doesn’t have one. I’m thinking of bribing one of the script writers to come up with a scene where I run her over or throw acid in her face or something constructive like that. The show’s still a winner. Being a bitch on a soap opera ain’t Broadway but it pays a hell of a lot better than selling Bibles door to door, an occupation I was once forced to fall back on before becoming the star I am today.”
    They both laughed.
    Marisa took both of his hands in hers. “Don’t worry, it’ll turn out all right. The business at your house is probably one of those off-the-wall things that happens to everybody at least once in their lives. You did say nothing was taken.”
    He nodded.
    “About being followed,” she said. “I know the feeling.”
    “You’re a lot prettier than I’ll ever be. Any man who wouldn’t follow you is myopic. Speaking of men, how’s Robert?”
    Marisa withdrew her hands and looked away.
    After a few seconds Nathan Shields said, “That bad?”
    Marisa nodded. “Eight days in Bermuda didn’t make a damn bit of difference. I came back with a tan and Robert came back as Robert. It seems that whenever we go away together he always returns the worse for it. Last year the five of us went to England and he comes back … God, Nat, it’s getting so I hardly know him anymore.”
    Nathan Shields eased off the desk and took Marisa in his arms. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is Robert hasn’t been the same since he’s gotten hold of that peculiar book—a Book of Shadows, they call it.”
    Marisa looked at Nat and was about to say something when the little antique dealer smiled and stroked her hair. “You can tell me all about it when you return with the food. I’m starving. Tell Michael to put it on my bill and see if he’s got a Danish. I’m sick of dieting. Who wants to live forever?”
    Marisa, a bag of food in one hand, turned the corner in time to see Nathan Shields lock the front door of his shop and walk across the sidewalk toward his brown and tan station wagon parked at the curb. He wasn’t alone. A stocky white-haired man had a hand on Nat’s right elbow, guiding him; a tall, thin-faced woman in thick glasses walked just behind the two men.
    Waving and shouting his name, Marisa tried to get Nat’s attention.
    “Nat! Nat! Where are you going?”
    He said nothing. He stood calmly by the station wagon and waited for the tall woman to open the door on the passenger side. On the driver’s side, the white-haired man paused to stare at Marisa before getting behind the wheel. His left hand was near the windshield and the thick silver and pearl bracelet on his wrist gleamed in the afternoon sun like a polished mirror.
    Marisa was getting angrier by the second. The two of them were supposed to be having lunch, but instead Nat Shields and two strangers were now sitting in the front seat of his station wagon and Nat was ignoring her.
    Marisa ran to the station wagon and pounded on the window with the palm of her hand. “Nat! What about our lunch? The Danish, remember?”
    Inside the car, the white-haired man turned the ignition key and as the motor started, the tall woman looked from Nat Shields to Marisa, who flinched as though she’d been struck. The hatred in the tall woman’s face was so strong that Marisa held her breath and stepped back. As the station wagon pulled away and eased into Madison Avenue traffic, Marisa watched the tall woman gently pat the shoulder bag resting in her lap.