Suspicion of Rage Read Free

ocean beyond. He could be dead in ten days, probably would be dead. How strange, then, to feel so content.
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 

 
    2
    Â 
    Â 
    A widening rectangle of light fell onto the terra-cotta tiles as Gail Connor opened the door and came outside. She looked along the portico with its turned Moorish columns and drapery of red bougainvillea. No one was there, only a row of empty cane-backed rocking chairs and champagne flutes left behind on a table. Crossing her bare arms against the cold, Gail walked down the steps to the front lawn. Landscaping lights shone on royal palm trees, beds of winter flowers, and the coral rock fountain splashing into its wide bowl. The brick driveway was jammed with cars. It was two days after New Year's, and strands of twinkling lights wove through the ironwork that topped the wall. The only person in sight was the parking attendant, tipped back on the legs of his chair.
    Coming back, Gail glanced through the windows into a swirl of color. Two of her friends had cornered a good-looking guy by the piano. Somebody was bravely attempting to play "Livin' La Vida Loca," and a middle-aged woman pulled her husband out of a chair to dance. A waiter slid around them with a tray over his head.
    Gail murmured, "Anthony, where are you?"
    She had thought that he and his friends might have come out to smoke a cigar and get away from the women, the older ones mostly, like Aunt Fermina, who wanted to know if they planned to have a baby, now that they were married. Or Aunt Zoraida, deaf in one ear, who had offered to do a Tarot-card reading for them. Anthony's grandmother, Digna Pedrosa, had clung to his arm all evening. This party had been her idea, making up for the fact that her grandson and his new wife had invited literally no one to their wedding last month; no friends, no family, not even Gail's twelve-year-old daughter, who had said it was about time they got it over with.  
    Señora Quintana.
    The name sounded strange, probably because of the way it had happened, a sort of spur-of-the-moment idea, going to the Florida Keys for the weekend, coming back as a couple. Of course Gail had wanted her daughter to be there, but then Anthony's children would have had to come too, and so would Gail's mother. If Irene were there, Anthony's grandparents couldn't be left out, or his sister Alicia and her kids, or his brother, or the rest of the tribe, which seemed to Gail at times to consist of half the Cubans living in Miami.
    She glanced at her watch. It was almost ten o'clock, and they hadn't finished packing. She hadn't finished. Anthony had done this so many times that he could pack in five minutes with his eyes closed. His suitcase waited by the door of their apartment. Hers and Karen's were still lying open on the living room rug surrounded by stacks of clothes. Not only clothes. Shampoo and soap, towels, hand lotion, sunscreen, a money belt, a first-aid kit, even a compass, every last thing that she'd heard you had to take to Cuba or do without. Anthony had stood over the pile shaking his head.
    They would be staying at his sister Maria's house in Havana. She was married to Ramiro Vega, a general in the army, and Anthony had said they lived very well by Cuban standards, whatever that meant. Next weekend the younger Vega daughter, Janelle, was having her quinceañera, her fifteenth birthday party. Gail had bought her a dress at a boutique in Coconut Grove, wanting to please Marta as much as the girl. Buying something for Janelle had been the last thing on Gail's list to be checked off.
    On only ten days' notice she had somehow managed to clear her schedule at her law office. Her secretary would forward messages via e-mail to Marta's house. An attorney friend in the same building would handle emergencies. As for Karen's father, Gail had expected a fight, but he hadn't objected. She guessed that he was happy to spend the extra time on his boat with his new girlfriend. But he had asked why. Why in