Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow Read Free Page A

let me apologize—”
    The woman who had been with Emily upstairs was now standing beside the reception desk, tearing a tissue to shreds as she watched the door to the examining rooms. Her hair had come loose and was falling around her face. Her black eyes kindled, looking over my shoulder, and then I heard Emily again, her voice soft and steady: “Have you been waiting all this time, Mrs. Stone? Everything’s all right, we’ll be able to finish our session after all.”
    She came around me and took the woman’s arm, deftly removing the shreds of tissue from her hands and putting them on the desk. Mrs. Stone’s tense face relaxed, and she clutched Emily’s hand as if it were a lifeline. They moved toward the doors.
    “Mrs. Tyler is such an excellent therapist,” the young black woman said to me, and a smile again softened her ultracompetent manner. “She has a real gift for coping with disturbed patients. But of course you know that.”
    I hadn’t known. Her profession had always been a bone of contention between Emily and me. I believed neurosis was just another name for self-indulgence, that a no-nonsense attitude and plenty of outdoor exercise were of far more use than complaining to a psychologist. But it was good to hear that people who worked with her thought she had “a real gift.”
    “Now,” I heard Peter say softly, “you’ve got it over with, you’ve seen and dealt with him, so you’ll be able to come to the presentation of the headship tonight, won’t you?”
    I turned and saw him looking down at me with genuine eagerness in his intelligent brown eyes. He was a tall, angular young man, rather good-looking once you got past his scholarly stoop and self-effacing manner. I had always been fond of him, and I was touched to see that he really did want me there at his big moment.
    “Oh, Peter.” I sighed. “Are you sure you want to take the chance of another scene like that one? I knew if I was forced to be in the same room with them, I’d behave badly.”
    “You’ll not need to go anywhere near them,” he assured me. “There will be nine people there besides you and them. Please say you’ll come. It means a lot to me.”
    How could I refuse that? It was true, the first encounter had to have been the worst. I vowed silently that I’d stay on the other side of the room and prove to everybody that I could control my emotions.
    Tom Ivey drove me home, chattering nervously, glancing over occasionally to be sure I was not going to burst into another temper tantrum.
    “I am glad you’ve agreed to come tonight,” he said as we pulled out of the hospital’s parking lot. “I’ll be able to introduce you to Gemma, my—my fiancée, even if just now things have been rather put on hold. She’ll come to her senses, of course. She’s also a junior fellow at Mercy. We’ve both worked with Peter, although of course Edgar Stone ultimately heads the area the three of us work in.” He was frowning now, and his hands had tightened on the wheel.
    “Stone? Wasn’t that the name of that woman Emily was treating?”
    “Ah, yes, she’s his wife. Everyone at the college feels most awfully sorry for her—everyone except for her husband, that is.” His scowl deepened. “He’s a cruel bugger, always doing the poor woman down. There”—he pointed at the windshield—“we’re about to pass their house.”
    I saw a two-story brick house, much like the others on the street leading out of Oxford, except that it was the only one with a tiny front yard encircled by an iron fence about the height of the average man. All the blinds were drawn too, creating a generally unwelcoming effect.
    “So you and Peter work for this Edgar Stone?” I asked. “I didn’t know they had that kind of working relationship at Oxford.”
    “Well, as I’m sure you know, we’re part of Mercy College’s staff for ‘Elizabethan Dramatists Other than Shakespeare,’ ” he said, with a self-deprecatory laugh. “A small,