Free Silent Treatment by Michael Palmer Page A

wondered if Evie’s playing it now was significant.
    “You want a drink?” he asked.
    “I have a vodka and tonic on the kitchen counter. Just add a little ice for me.…”
    She must be off the phone.
    “… I’ll be out in a minute. I made reservations at the SeaGrill if that’s okay.”
    “Fine.”
    Harry tried unsuccessfully to read something—anything—into her voice.
    She emerged from the bedroom wearing black slacks and a red silk blouse. The colors looked smashing on her. Then again, most colors did. She kissed him on the cheek—nearly an air kiss.
    “Was it hard getting away from the office?” she asked, retrieving her drink.
    “Not really. Mary cleared my schedule and canceled me out with the band. She can do anything she sets her mind to.”
    “How’s she doing?”
    “Mary?”
    “Yes.”
    Harry couldn’t remember when Evie had last asked about his office staff—or, for that matter, the guys in the band or his co-workers.
    “The arthritis in her hips is pretty bad. But in general she’s doing fine. Are
you
okay?”
    “As well as can be expected, I guess.”
    She sipped her drink. Harry gave up trying to see behind the small talk and instead handed her the necklace. She seemed genuinely charmed and impressed by the gift and immediately replaced the gold chain she was wearing with it.
    “This is really very sweet of you,” she said, glancing again at the card.
    “I just wanted to be sure you know that everything’s going to be okay.”
    Her smile was enigmatic, but there was unmistakable sadness in her eyes.
    “You always tell me that things have a habit of working out the way they’re supposed to.”
    “That’s me. Harry Corbett, mild-mannered GP by day, impenetrable philosopher by night.”
    “Well, I think this time you’ve got it right, impenetrable one. Things do have a way of working out.”
    She gazed out the window, absently fingering the pendant. The early evening light glowed against her pale skin and highlighted her flawless profile. She was, if anything, even more strikingly lovely than she had been when they first met.
    “You … um … said you needed to speak with me.”
    Even as he heard his voice saying the words, Harry cursed himself for not having more restraint. If she felt ready to say something, she would have said it.
    She glanced at him and then turned back to the window. “I—I just wanted to spend some time talking together tonight,” she said. “After all, medical science may have broken through the envelope, but brain surgery is still brain surgery.”
    “I understand,” Harry said. But in truth, he was not at all certain that he did. “So … are—are you hungry?”
    “I will be by the time we get there.”
    “Want to walk?” The question was almost rhetorical. Evie was invariably in too great a rush to get wherever she was going to walk.
    “Let’s do that,” she said suddenly. “Let’s walk. Harry, this is a beautiful necklace. I’m really very touched.”
    Harry searched for the cynicism he had grown used to from her but found none. His fantasies about a return to the life they had once had began to simmer. Evie had already turned and started toward the bedroom when he realized the phone was ringing.
    “I’ll get it,” she called out, hurrying down the hall. “I want to get my purse anyhow.”
    Harry shrugged and, still feeling uneasy, went to the kitchen and set his glass in the sink. Through the eight Bose speakers mounted throughout the apartment, Eric Clapton was reminding him that nobody knows you when you’re down and out.
    Down the hall in the bedroom, her hand cupped over the mouthpiece of the phone, Evie was holding a brief, hushed conversation.
    “No … no, I haven’t told him about us yet,” she said. “But I’m going to.”
    She set the receiver down and held the diamond pendant up where she could see it.
    “At least I
think
I’m going to,” she murmured.

CHAPTER