The wounded sky pressed its image on the sea, and the sea, too, was red, and the air between the sky and the sea was as fiery as that in a furnace, as if all of nature would be consumed before night could quench the blaze.

| 47 |

When David arrived home at 5:48, Maddison’s vintage sports car was in the garage. He parked beside it.

When he entered the kitchen, he found two place settings on the table, a small vase of red roses, and three cut-crystal holders with candles not yet lit. A bottle of chardonnay, in a clear-glass ice bucket, stood open on a counter, with two glasses ready at its side.

In black jeans and a white shirt with an embroidered blue-and-yellow butterfly on the breast pocket, Maddison was busy with what seemed to be half a dozen culinary tasks simultaneously.

She looked ravishing, as always. She paused in the process of dividing the curd of a cauliflower into sprigs, put her arms around him and kissed him. Her mouth was sweet with the flavor of carrots, which she evidently had been slicing and sampling earlier. He did not deserve this, shouldn’t accept it until he knew everything about her. But reckless abandon was an aspect of his madness, and he became lost in the kiss for a long moment.

Returning to the cauliflower, she said, “I came at three o’clock because there were groceries to unpack, so many preparations to make. It’s a small but wonderfully functional kitchen, so cozy.”

“We could have gone out to dinner.”

“No, no, no! I want to do this for you, for us, a lovely little dinner at home, without a waiter interrupting to ask if everything is to our taste—I assure you, it will be—if he can pour more water, if he can pour more wine. I want you to myself this evening, no other women’s eyes on you.”

“I wasn’t aware that women took notice of me.”

“They all do, Davey. But not tonight. Tonight, you’re just mine. How was your day?”

“I knocked around here and there. Looked into a thing or two, this and that.”

“Research?” she asked.

He flinched at the question, rattling the ice in the glass bucket as he withdrew the bottle of wine. Belatedly he realized that she meant research for a book.

“Oh, I’m not working now. This is a vacation, a winding down before I get wound up for the next book. How was your day?”

“Excellent. I’ve wrapped up everything I had to do here in Orange County. I’m free, free, free.”

“No more assassinations, bodies to dispose of?”

She grinned and winked at him, which he took to mean that it had all been a joke. “Not a one. Got away with it scot-free. I’ve nothing to do tonight but be your chef—and later something better.”