Free Night Songs by Charles L. Grant

floor lamp to her left, and her shadowed face. She could see the street, however, and the Adams' house on the other side. A puff of fog hung over the streetlamp near the corner. Though the house was warm she hugged herself for a moment and wished she'd been able to attend the funeral. Lilla, she suspected, would be angry with her now, but it was a shame just the same.
        She massaged her feet absently. "Mom?"
        She looked up, around toward the staircase by the front door. "You called?"
        "Can I watch TV?"
        "I don't know. You finish your homework?"
        "Sure."
        She shifted, lowering her feet to the carpet. A stupid question, she thought. If he'd had to read War and Peace by morning the answer would have been the same. She glanced at her watch and did some rapid subtraction. "All right," she called back. "But just till nine, got it? Nine o'clock and that thing is off."
        "Thanks!"
        "You're welcome," she said without raising her voice, then looked to the telephone on the table beside her. Talk. She needed talk, and with the funeral going on she might as well let her mother know she was still alive and unmarried. Then, thinking about the advice she didn't need but would get anyway, she rose, walked into the study again, and stared at the bookshelves and the cabinets beneath them where Jim had stored his files. She'd gone through them after he died, thinking she might be able to find his notes on the casinos and gamblers, thinking she'd be able to march into FBI headquarters and dump them on an agent's desk and demand justice be done. But she hadn't found them. No one had. And despite police efforts…
        Hell, she thought, and looked back to the phone. Maybe Mother wouldn't be so bad, after all. Maybe she wouldn't be up to her lecture on the virtues of having a husband, and a father for poor little Matthew. Like Jim, she would say with undisguised grief in her voice. Or that nice restaurant man, what's his name again? Something Campbell? Cameron?
        Peg's sudden smile was mirthless.
        What few people knew, and what fewer would have believed if they had known, was that if Jim had lived another year she would have divorced him. Ironic, even bitterly so, but against all accounts and his crusading to save the island, Jim Fletcher had been a goddamned bastard. Miserly, philandering, and ridiculing her attempts to continue running the store she'd inherited from her father. Once, he'd even attempted to force her to choose between the business and him, backing down only when she'd made it absolutely clear what the answer would have been.
        By the time of his death she had grown to hate him.
        By the time of his death he had lost his son's love.
        "Damn," she muttered, and decided to go upstairs and watch television with Matt. If she were lucky, the picture would be new and Matt would have seen it only a dozen or so times. By the end of the last commercial maybe the funeral would be over. Then she could call Colin and maybe he'd come over for a drink, something warm, some talk… maybe a little loving, which suddenly she felt she needed very badly.
        But when she reached the staircase she changed her mind and went back to the chair, picked a book up from the floor and opened it to the first page. Soon, she told herself; the funeral will be over soon and then I'll call Colin.
        
***
        
        Lilla met Colin at the threshold and faced him squarely. Her face was drawn, her hair tangled and damp. The black dress clung provocatively to her figure, and might have seemed blasphemous had it not been for the dirt and dust that faded parts of it to grey.
        "It's time," she said when he was close enough.
        He nodded.
        "I have no choice?"
        "Lilla…"
        She smiled weakly. "I just wanted to try one more time." Then she sagged, and he held her awkwardly, unable to shake the feeling that all her