Trophies Read Free

possible.
    "So where were you last night?"
    "At home." I gave him the address of my condo
on the waterfront, north of Burroughs Wharf and well away from the
tourist congestion at the Aquarium and Rowe's Wharf. He didn't
write anything down; perhaps he had a photographic memory. "I had
dinner with Aunt Edith around seven, got home around nine thirty or
a bit after, and stayed in."
    She had tried to persuade me to be sociable
and forgiving, get involved with her latest bloody art show, see
the family while everyone was in town as if I had a particle of
interest whatsoever in them. The remembrance of how little
encouragement I had given her during that, our final conversation,
set my insides squirming.
    "Can anyone confirm that?"
    I hadn't even checked email. "No."
    That internal squirming had a distinctly
frigid tinge to it now. He'd gun for motive next; wasn't that how
they did it on those stupid cop shows?
    But he surprised me by motioning me out of
the car. He leaned atop the hood, his perfect face strobed by the
popping emergency lights so that he seemed dipped in blood then
wiped clean, over and over again. I knew that image would stay in
my nightmares for a long time to come. Something else to appreciate
about the man.
    "Don't leave town," he said, and walked
away.
     

 
Archive One
    seventeen years earlier
    "William." Mum paused in the library doorway,
keys in hand. She wore her best silk traveling suit and a twist of
pearls, overdressed for a quick delivery of her younger son to the
next town, although I liked the color. Poised as she was on the
balls of her strappy sandals, chin in the air and eyes alive, she
seemed to hover on the verge of something long desired and
all-too-long out of reach. "Charles is leaving for school."
    I peered around her, careful to keep air
between us and not bothering to hide my disgust. I wanted to give
no sign of anything that hinted at solidarity and if I hurt
anybody's feelings, well, mine were marked a bit, too.
    My father sat in the velvet wing chair by the
tall narrow windows, sunlight spilling across the planes of his
angular face and highlighting the hook of his Roman nose. Even at
home, his shave was close, his black hair parted and combed, and
the leather-bound case book resting on his crossed knees didn't
dare crease his dark slacks.
    He glanced back and forth between Mum and me
as if wives and eleven-year-old sons, disgusted or otherwise,
weren't normal inhabitants of his legal world. Then his expression
sharpened and his lips thinned. He shot out his left arm, yanking
the cuff back from his curved Hermes watch, and glanced at its
face, angling his head back as if looking down his nose at such a
trifling domestic event. "Well. Have a good first term, then." He
returned to his reading. "If you must marry immediately, consider
not getting her pregnant until you've both graduated."
    My elder brother William Junior, at nineteen
the family prodigy and already reading law at Cambridge, had just
baptized William the Third. I gave Father points for the attempt at
humor although I refrained from smiling.
    "For God's sake, get over it." Mum sounded
tired rather than angry. "Get over all of it. What time do you
leave for London?"
    I had thought her green silk suit, so
suitable for her peaches-and-cream English looks, had been donned
in my honor. Perhaps I should have known better, but the slight hit
home. At least she wasn't mailing me and my trunk from the post
office.
    Father didn't look up again. "One hour."
    "I should return by then. Come along,
Charles."
    My trunk was already in the boot of the car
and my uniform, a rather natty combination of navy blue jacket and
tan trousers, was upon my scrawny self. There seemed nothing else
to say, or, in my own case, nothing at all. I followed Mum through
the vestibule, past the glass case crammed with William's shining
trophies, and out to the car for the ten-minute drive to my new
school.
    Ten minutes. Even after months of getting
over it, as