Free Shadowfires by Dean Koontz Page B

of so much money, about the changes for better and worse that it might cause between them. However, this was neither the time nor the place to pursue the matter, and he decided to put it out of his mind for the moment. That was not easy. A fortune in tens of millions was a powerful magnet relentlessly drawing the mind regardless of how many other urgent matters required attention.
    “You lived here six years?” he asked disbelievingly as they moved
through the cool sterile rooms, past the precisely arranged
displays.
    “Yes,” she said, relaxing slightly as they roamed deeper into the
house without encountering a threat of any kind. “Six long years.”
    As they inspected the white vaulted chambers, the place began to
seem less like a house and more like a great mass of ice in which
some primeval catastrophe had embedded scores of gorgeous artifacts
from another, earlier civilization.
    He said, “It seems… forbidding.”
    “Eric
didn't care about having a real home-a cozy, livable home, I mean. He never was much aware of his surroundings anyway. He lived in the future, not the present. All he wanted of his house was that it serve as a monument to his success, and that's
what you see here.”
    “I'd expect to see your touch-your sensual style-everywhere, somewhere, but it's
nowhere in sight.”
    “Eric allowed no changes in decor,” she said.
    “And you could live with that?”
    “I did, yes.”
    “I can't picture you being happy in such a chilly place.”
    “Oh, it wasn't that bad. Really, it wasn't. There are many
amazingly beautiful things here. Any one of them can occupy hours of
study… contemplation… and provide great pleasure, even spiritual
pleasure.”
    He always marveled at how Rachael routinely found the positive
aspect of even difficult circumstances. She wrung every drop of
enjoyment and delight from a situation and did her best to ignore the
unpleasant aspects. Her present-focused, pleasure-oriented
personality was an effective armor against the vicissitudes of
life.
    At the rear of the ground floor, in the billiards room that looked
out upon the swimming pool, the largest object on display was an
intricately carved, claw-footed, late-nineteenth-century billiards
table that boasted teak rails inlaid with semiprecious stones.
    “Eric never played,” Rachael said. “Never held a cue stick in his
hands. All he cared about was that the table is one of a kind and
that it cost more than thirty thousand dollars. The overhead lights
aren't positioned to facilitate play; they're aimed to present the
table to its best advantage.”
    “The more I see of this place, the better I understand him,” Ben
said, “but the less able I am to grasp why you ever married him.”
    “I was young, unsure of myself, perhaps looking for the father
figure that'd always been missing in my life. He was so calm. He had such tremendous self-assurance. In him, I saw a man of power, a man who could carve out a niche for himself, a ledge on the mountainside where I could find stability, safety. At the time, I thought that was all I wanted.”
    Implicit in those words was the admission that her childhood and
adolescence had been difficult at best, confirming a suspicion Ben
had harbored for months. She seldom spoke of her parents or of her
school years, and Ben believed that those formative experiences had
been so negative as to leave her with a loathing for the past, a
distrust of the uncertain future, and a defensive ability to focus
intently upon whatever great or meager joys the moment offered.
    He wanted to pursue that subject now, but before he could say
anything, the mood abruptly changed. A sense of imminent danger had
hung heavy in the air upon their entrance, then had faded as they
progressed from one deserted white room to another with the growing
conviction that no intruder lurked within the house. Rachael had
stopped pointing the pistol ahead of her and had been holding it at
her side with the muzzle aimed at