At the Edge of the Sun (Maggie Bennett 3)

one

Maggie Bennett stared at the gun in her hand. The tiny Colt 380 pistol was compact enough to look like a toy, but no toy ever felt so cold and deadly against her warm flesh. She’d never liked guns, but she was pragmatic enough to accept that they had their uses, so she always kept one handy. She’d cleaned it regularly in the four months she’d been back in New York, kept it neat and in perfect working order, just in case Randall Carter ever made the fatal mistake of walking through her door.

So far he’d been wise enough to keep his distance. Maybe he realized she knew about his involvement with her husband’s death, maybe not. She’d told no one about Bud Willis’s deathbed confession, his choking, malicious admission that Randall had paid him twenty thousand dollars to gun down Mack Pulaski two years ago on the streets of Booth-bay Harbor. She kept that four-month-old confession like a deadly canker eating away at her heart, half of her convinced it was true, half of her still refusing to believe it. She recognized the dangers of keeping it all inside her—no one had the chance to argue with her, to try to convince her that Bud Willis had lied. But then no one had the chance to look at her with sorrowing, sympathetic eyes, no one knew what a fool she’d been, to fall in love with someone who could be her husband’s murderer.

Mike Jackson was the only one who’d seen through her defenses. Her boss at Third World Causes, Ltd., had taken her off any important cases and kept her busy with inconsequential paperwork. It was the best thing he could have done, because at this point she was ineffective as a lawyer. She was too distracted to concentrate on any of the usual cases assigned her, but she had needed something to fill the endless hours, something besides karate and the ever-present sense of doubt and betrayal.

She finished cleaning the gun, slipped it back in its custom-tailored shoulder holster, and locked it back in the desk drawer. The desk was one of the few pieces of furniture she’d kept; the rest of her apartment looked as austere as a Buddhist shrine. She started to run her hand through her short-cropped blond hair, then pulled it back, wrinkling her nose at the smell of gun oil clinging to her skin. She hated the acrid stink of it, hated the way it stuck to her for days, reminding her of the weapon of death that lay hidden, waiting for her.

It wasn’t the only weapon of death at her command nowadays, she reminded herself, heading through the empty apartment, through her bedroom with the futon on the floor and the neat piles of neutral-color clothes, past the solitary floor lamp that was always on, night or day, keeping the darkness at bay. For the past four months she’d immersed herself in the study of karate, and as she’d cleared her apartment of any extraneous furniture and decoration so she’d cleared her life of any excess baggage. Her entire energy had been devoted to the singleminded goal of revenge.

But gradually, slowly, her rage had ebbed away. There was no way one could study the ancient discipline of karate as a mere physical exercise. It was a study of mind and soul as well, and anger, rage, and hot-blooded killing had little to do with it. As her life became centered, her anger dissipated, and a hard-won calm filled her soul, banking down her rage and fooling her into thinking she had risen above mundane human emotions such as revenge, hatred, desire. Only her dreams told her otherwise.

She scrubbed at her hands, using the rough lye soap that had replaced her lavender-scented English imports, and looked up at her face in the mirror, something she seldom did nowadays. The short-cropped blond hair was more functional than flattering. She’d chopped off her shoulder-length mane when she’d flown back from Washington and Bud Willis’s deathbed, and kept it trimmed off her nape with nail scissors. She’d lost weight, weight she couldn’t necessarily afford to lose, and there was a fine-honed, slightly driven look to her facial structure, to the tight, fair skin that stretched over her delicate bones, to the shadowed aquamarine eyes that looked bigger than ever in her pale, narrow face. Her mouth gave her away every time. It was pale, vulnerable, and smiled all too infrequently. She stared at that lost face, then stuck out her tongue at her solemn reflection. Then she turned away, flicking off the light.

She should call Sybil. The one piece of modern technology she’d kept when she’d gotten rid of her stereo and television paraphernalia was the telephone answering machine, and like the bedroom lamp it was kept on at all times. She was terrified that Randall would call, that she’d be forced to face her doubts and a truth that was unacceptable, and that rage would take over, a rage so deep and blinding that she’d never recover from it.

But as the weeks and months passed and he made no effort to contact her, she began to relax. But not enough to turn off the machine and answer her phone.

Sybil had called sometime during the night, her wonderful British actress’s voice rich with drama and the perfect note of suppressed terror. The message had been wonderfully cryptic, and Maggie had listened to it with a shade of her old tolerant amusement. “Maggie, darling, something very odd is going on here. Something’s not quite right with Flynn, and I’m getting nervous. I need you. Can you fly out here tomorrow morning? I’m afraid this might be serious.” Without another word the phone had clicked off, and Maggie had smiled, reset the machine, and gone to bed. She could guess what wasn’t quite right with Flynn, Sybil’s latest lover. Sybil had grown tired of him, probably found someone newer and younger, and wanted Maggie’s help in getting rid of him.

It had happened before, more than once. Sybil was a romantic butterfly, flitting from man to man, always loathe to clean up the emotional mess she left behind, always hoping one of her ever-helpful daughters would take care of it. Tim Flynn was merely the latest in a long line of handsome young men.

Not that Maggie ever met him. As far as she knew, no one had. Sybil liked to keep her young men under wraps, with nothing to distract their attention from her mature charms, but with Tim Flynn it had been excessive. They’d gone underground during the past few months, and no one had been allowed to interfere with their idyll. Sybil would call every now and then and make mysterious references to the IRA. References Maggie took with a grain of salt. He was probably a boozy soccer player whose father had once thrown a rock at a British soldier. Sybil’s fantasy world was harmless but well established.

Well, she could wait. This latest trauma had to be a new melodrama she was acting out, and she could rid herself of her soccer player without Maggie coming to the rescue. She was tired of bailing her family out. She still needed time to pull herself together, to marshall her strength and calm, until the memory of Randall Carter produced not even a flicker of emotion. She was getting close, but she wasn’t there yet.

Already her palms were getting damp with remembered anger. She needed to work out some of the lingering tendrils of rage, and she knew exactly how to do it. There were advanced classes starting in less than an hour at the Eighty-third Street School of Self Defense, and if she could find a taxi in the pre-Christmas rush she’d make it. Grabbing her bag, she headed for the door,

stopping for a moment when she heard the soft murmur of the phone ringing. The answering machine clicked on, and Maggie reached for the door, determined to ignore it. But something held her there, some last tiny bit of curiosity, and as the machine clicked again she heard the flat California accent with something close to dread.

“This is Lieutenant Miller of the Los Angeles Police Department. We’re trying to find Margrethe Bennett …”

“How long are you going to be?” Kate Zimmerman McAllister sat on the edge of her sister Holly’s silk-covered chaise longue and glared at the serenely beautiful reflection in the huge mirror.

Holly’s aquamarine eyes met her sister’s plain brown ones in the mirror, and she smiled calmly. “As long as it takes me,” she replied, her voice low and musical and a perfect complement to her face.

“As long as it takes you to do what?” Kate snapped. “You’re already gorgeous enough.”

Holly picked up a slender mink brush and began to sketch a careful line of smokey blue above her luxuriant eyelashes. “In my profession no one is ever gorgeous enough, Kate.”

“Profession!” Kate scoffed. “You have a decent mind, a good education, and more ability than most people. Why the hell do you waste your time being a model?”

“Not just a model, Katy dear. I’m the best,” she said simply.

“You mean the highest paid?”

“No. The best.”

“Aren’t you a little long in the tooth for living by your looks? You’re twenty-seven; pretty soon lines will start to form.”

“I already have lines, Kate. They add character.” She gave her sister a sudden, mischievous grin. “Don’t worry about my future, sister dear. As all the baby boomers get older they’ll want their models older. No one wants to see a fifteen-year-old wearing their clothes. I’ll do just fine.”

“It’s such a waste!” Kate wailed.

“Maybe I think making lightweight little movies is a waste,” she replied tranquilly. “Maybe I think you and Caleb should quit your new jobs here in L.A. and devote your life to the poor. I would have thought you’d have enough of the film industry after that mess Maggie bailed you out of. Why don’t you and your new husband start a soup kitchen?”

“Don’t twist things around.”

“Don’t pass judgment on me, Kate. I’m very happy with what I do.” She picked up a wider brush, drew a faint line of lilac across her upper lid, and leaned back to admire the effect.

Kate opened her mouth to protest, then shut it with a snap, frustration and disapproval radiating through her body. “You’re right,” she said finally. “I am too judgmental. What you do with your life is your business.”

“Exactly,” she said gently.