"Exact Revenge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Tim)

10

IN THE MORNING, I took a ten-mile run in the drizzling rain. I was drenched and slick with sweat and sucking in air. I shucked off my sneakers and clothes on the end of the dock and plunged into the cold water. After looking around for any fishermen drifting in from the mist, I climbed naked onto the dock, grabbed a towel from the boat, and wrapped it around my waist.

Halfway up the slate walk to the house, I smelled food. Lexis had cooked up my favorite breakfast: broccoli and cheese omelets. We had buttered toast made from thick-cut Italian bread and coffee made from the beans of an espresso blend. We ate outside on the slate terrace even though the air was still damp from the rain. When I finished eating, I sat back and inhaled the curling steam from my coffee mug. Out on the lake, a fishing boat floated past, appearing and disappearing on the fringe of the morning mist. The laughter of the two fishermen rang out across the still water.

We moved inside and sat on the couch by the empty fireplace, reading our books until noon, then took my nineteen-foot Sea Ray into town for fried fish sandwiches at Doug’s. By the time we came out, the clouds had thinned and the sun had begun to boil off the dampness. We stopped at Riddler’s for the paper.

Someone had leaked the news of my impending nomination and my picture was on page one. I looked around the store and folded the paper in half before buying it with my head down.

Back at the house, we toweled off the deck chairs on the end of the dock and lay reading in the sun. When it got hot enough, we went in the water and played our usual game. I’d take a deep breath and crouch down on the rocky bottom. She’d fit her insteps into my palms, then I’d stand up fast and push for the sky. Lexis would launch into the air and do a flip. I loved seeing her do that and we’d laugh until we couldn’t catch our breath.

Dan Parsons sent a long black limousine for us at five-thirty, and by the time we arrived at the convention center, the crowd converged around us, fawning as if we were a museum exhibit. And, me being a Republican with a Native American mother, I guess in a way we were. Cameras flashed at odd intervals. I saw Lexis stare at a tray of champagne being offered to her by a waiter, but she smiled at me and shook her head no to him. We drifted through the swirl of congratulations. Congratulations when they saw her ring. Congratulations on the Iroquois deal. Congratulations for my nomination. Love. Money. Power.

We sat at the head table with the governor and his wife on one side and the Parsonses on the other. On the opposite side of the dais, Bob Rangle was red-faced and drinking a glass of white wine that seemed to be bottomless. The one time we found ourselves face-to-face during cocktails, he scowled and quickly turned away. I wasn’t surprised that he was finally showing his true feelings, but I was disappointed that he had chosen to show them here.

I had only one Budweiser before I switched to Perrier, but I was as light-headed as if I’d kept drinking beer. I took a few bites of my prime rib, then lost my appetite. I had refused to prepare some long-drawn-out speech. That was part of doing it my way. Still, I knew enough to at least jot down some notes for what I was about to say. My stomach felt light and queasy, and I was wiping the sweat from my palms on the legs of my pants, concentrating on taking slow deep breaths when a waiter tapped my shoulder.

“Mr. White?” he said. “Those men asked to speak with you.”

Standing at the bottom of the steps that led up onto the dais were two uniformed police and a man with an auburn mustache wearing a navy blazer. On either side of them were the stone-faced state troopers who protected the governor.

Lexis saw me looking at them. When I stood up, she said, “Raymond?”

She touched my arm. At that moment, all of it-the adulation, the glamour, the power-began to melt away, and the only thing that mattered to me was her.

I was suddenly struck by the feeling that I’d done something wrong, even though I hadn’t. I should have told Lexis about Roger Williamson and the letter and the girl. Why hadn’t I?

It was too late. My legs were numb, but I was already at the steps.

The man in the blazer and the orange mustache took a paper out of his inside pocket. He handed it to me.

“Raymond White?” he said quietly.

“Yes.”

“Would you please come with us?”

“Why?”

He looked out at the crowd that was beginning to crane their necks. A murmur rose up.

“Because you’re under arrest,” he said. “For the murder of Celeste Oliver.”