Free The Final Judgment by Richard North Patterson

touching Bret’s arm. “Before you answer me, Brett, I need to tell you something else. “You asked me to believe you. I’m offering you something better.” Caroline’s voice became softer yet. “I don’t care what happened. All I care about is that you not be hurt.” Brett sat straighter, her eyes looking straight into Caroline’s. With equal softness, she said, “I had no reason to kill him, and I never saw that knife before. I’m innocent.”
     
     
CHAPTER FOUR
    Wearily descending the staircase, Caroline was unprepared for Larry. He turned from the dining room table, a china plate in his hand. As he froze in the candlelight, Caroline saw the young husband she had known, gentle and soft-spoken, beneath the wary gaze of a man of fifty. He was still lean, gray-haired now, the kind aspect of his face tending far less to the amused irony of the graduate student who knew his choice of English lit was feckless but believed that life would somehow reward him for his foolishness, providing the job that he needed and the baby Betty so desperately wanted. For a fleeting moment, Caroline wished that she could stop that summer in midflight, so that she would not now read its end in Larry’s face. “Cato,” he said softly. She merely nodded. There was really nothing to say. He moved a step closer, still tentative, as if to verify her presence. Caroline gave him no help. He stopped, looking into her face until he seemed to see what was written there. “Why,” Caroline said in a low voice, “did you ever bring her here?” Larry did not flinch; Caroline saw that he had prepared himself for this. “All that matters, Caroline, is how she is right now.” Through his defensiveness, Caroline heard a trace of rebuke, as though the family that lived here was paying a price Caroline would never know. “Yes,” she said coolly. “I’m very sorry for you, of course.”
    Larry glanced over his shoulder. In an undertone, he said, “Caroline, please...”
    “The truth, Larry, is that I don’t know how she is. Only that she’s frightened, and smart, and trying to maintain.” The struggle for dispassion, Caroline realized, was costing her: some part of her felt gutted. For a moment, Larry watched her. “We waited dinner.” Larry’s tone held a faint apology. “You look pale, Caro. It would be good if you ate something.” Caroline was light-headed from weariness and hunger. Yes, she thought, that was the Larry she remembered—considerate, at pains to empathize. The one she had opened her heart to when she could no longer turn to her own family. She shook her head. “There’s been a lot today .... “ As if her admission gave him confidence, Larry reached out, his hand resting gently on her shoulder. “Stay,” he said. “Please. We’ve made up a room for you.” Caroline looked into his face. Only then did she realize that Betty watched them from the kitchen door. Following Caroline’s gaze, Larry turned to his wife. To Caroline, Betty’s face was an inscrutable mask. Larry crossed the room to Betty. “I’ll help with the pasta.” His tone strained for normality. “It’ll just be the three of us.” Caroline’s mind filled with dark humor, the skewed vision of a television family. Yes, she imagined Betty saying chirpily, Dad’ eating in his room tonight. He gets so over-excited whenever he sees Caroline. She realized that she was studying Betty with a grim half smile. Betty seemed to stand straighter. At the corner of her eye, Caroline saw Larry give her sister an admonitory gaze, form a few silent words with his lips. They vanished through the kitchen door. By rote, Caroline sat in the place that had once been hers.
    They ate by candlelight, the tradition of Caroline’s father and his father before him. It played tricks on Caroline’s memory. The light that danced on the crystal chandelier seemed to come from some other evening; the glow in the beveled mirror from Caroline’s childhood. Gazing across the table at her sister, Caroline remembered her father at