Tell No Lies Read Free Page A

material.”
    He observes the derision in her face; at thirty-five he has learned to regulate his reactions to her. Outwardly at least. Not that it slows her down any.
    “What did I do to you that you have to do the opposite of everything that makes sense?” she asked. “Just once can’t you take the easy way?”
    “Easy’s overrated.”
    She smiles humorlessly, then orients herself toward a more pleasing view. Her sitting-room window looks across the curved cliffs rimming Baker Beach. In the distance a hang glider leaps free of the earth and soars, dangling from rainbow wings, a dot against the choppy expanse of the Pacific. “We’ve all had hobbies. When I danced for Balanchine as a young woman, I never lost sight of my real responsibilities. And now with your father gone and you the last one.” She takes a silent sip, as if her nerves need settling. But Evelyn’s nerves never need settling. “This is because of her, isn’t it? The illness.”
    “Yes, but in a good way. It’s what I want. I’ve been lucky. I’ve made plenty of money—”
    “With the job I handed you.” The jeer seems not up to Evelyn’s standards, and sure enough her face registers a flicker of regret. Her insults are generally less trifling, better constructed. She turns to the window, her steel-gray hair fastened in a chignon. “You are built for your job. This is what we do. This family has weathered the Great Quake, two world wars, Black Monday, Black Friday—hell, a Black Each Day of the Week—and now you want what? To leave? Forge your own way in the world?” The last, tinged with mockery.
    “Yes.”
    She turns, that silhouette, framed against the double-paned glass, still striking. “You’ll never make it.”
    “Why?” he asks.
    She touches her lips to the rim of her cocktail glass as if to nibble it. “Because I couldn’t.”
    He shows himself out. He is at his car when he hears dress shoes crunching the quartz stone of the circular driveway behind him; James is too well mannered to call out. Before James has to say anything, Daniel nods, sighs heavily, and heads back inside.
    There has been a set change. Evelyn is sitting on the velvet couch in the sunroom, flipping through a magazine. “You know, Daniel, I’ve been thinking. Maybe this is a good thing. All this talk about helping others. You and Constanza—”
    “Cristina.”
    “—have been so vocal about good works and charity that it’s made me consider my own blessed lot in life. Long look in the mirror, et cetera.” A smile creases her face, stopping well short of her eyes. “In fact, you’ve inspired me to bequeath my estate, my entire estate, to the arts. A museum. Perhaps the opera house. Isn’t that something you’d approve of?”
    Now, that, he thinks, is an Evelyn-grade assault.
    At last her smile is genuine. His mouth has gone to sand, and he feels the familiar fury burning through his veins, but then he blinks and sees her with a moment of pristine clarity, as if a filter had been changed on his camera lens. He sees her as if she were just another seventy-six-year-old lady, sitting next to him at a play or getting off a bus from the Midwest, a petulant woman-child full of flaws and scars who wants to take her toys and go home. He breathes out and feels the tightness in his chest release, if only slightly.
    “Yes, Mom,” he says. “Great idea.”
    *   *   *
    The elevator heaved to a stomach-jolting stop in the lobby, and Daniel passed through the metal-detector checkpoint, dropping his keys into a plastic dish. He rode another elevator to the third floor and stepped out into the corridor. For three years he’d walked these halls, ridden that Clorox elevator. In a few months, he’d be moving on. As he braced himself and headed for the meeting room, it struck him just how much he’d miss all this.
    He could already hear the group milling around beyond the corner. Rowdy laughter. A sharp curse. The threat of violence, coursing like the