On the vast flatlands below these hills, although most of the county’s multitudes were still asleep, millions of lights glimmered even at this hour. View windows admitted just enough ambient light for the doctor to make his way with catlike surety, and he found the golden glow appealing.
Standing at a huge sheet of glass in the dark, basking in the incoming radiance, gazing at this urban sprawl that lay before him like the biggest playset in the world, he knew how God would feel, looking down on Creation, if there had been a god. The doctor was a player, not a believer.
Sipping cherry Coke, he roamed room to room, along passage-ways and galleries. The huge house was a labyrinth in more ways than one, but eventually he returned to the living room.
Here, more than eighteen months ago, he acquired Susan. On the day that escrow closed, he had met her here to receive the house keys and the thick operating manual for the computerized systems. She was surprised to find him with two champagne flutes and a chilled bottle of Dom Perignon. From the day they’d met, the doctor had been careful never to suggest that his interest in her went beyond her real-estate expertise; even with champagne in hand, he had struck a note of such erotic indifference that she didn’t feel she, a married woman, was being romanced. Indeed, from the moment he’d met her and decided to have her, he had scattered hints, like breadcrumbs to a pigeon, that he was gay. Because he was so happy with his spectacular new house and because she wasn’t displeased by the fat commission she’d earned, she saw no harm in celebrating with a glass of champagne — although hers was, of course, spiked.
Here in the wake of her death, conflicting emotions bedeviled Ahriman. He regretted the loss of Susan, all but swooned to the tug of a sweet sentimentality, but also felt wronged, betrayed. In spite of all the great good times they’d had together, she would still have ruined him if she’d had the chance.
At last he resolved his inner conflict, because he realized that she was just a girl like other girls, that she hadn’t deserved all the time and attention he had lavished on her. To brood about her now would be to concede that she’d had a power over him no one else had ever exercised.
“I’m glad you’re dead,” he said aloud in the dark living room. “I’m glad you’re dead, you stupid girl. I hope the razor hurt.”
After vocalizing his anger, he felt ever so much better. Oh, really, a thousand percent.
Although Cedric and Nella Hawthorne, the couple who managed the estate, were currently in residence, Ahriman was not concerned about being overheard. The Hawthornes were surely abed in their three-room apartment in the servants’ wing. And regardless of what they might see or hear, he need not be concerned that they would ever remember anything that would endanger him.
“I hope it hurt,” he repeated.
Then he took the elevator up to the next floor and followed the hallway to the master-bedroom suite.
He brushed his teeth, flossed meticulously, and dressed in black silk pajamas.
Nella had turned down the bed. White Pratesi sheets with black piping. Plenty of plump pillows.
As usual, on his nightstand was a Lalique bowl full of candy bars, two each of his six favorite brands. He wished he hadn’t brushed his teeth.
Before turning in, he used the bedside Crestron touch-screen to access the automated-house program. With this control panel, he could operate lights throughout the residence, air-conditioning and heating room by room, the security system, landscape-surveillance cameras, pool and spa heaters, and numerous other systems and devices.
He entered his personal code to access a
When he keyed in a seven-digit number, a pneumatically driven section of granite on the face of the fireplace slid aside, revealing a small, embedded steel safe. Ahriman entered the combination on the keypad, and across the room, the lock released with an audible
He went to the fireplace, opened the twelve-inch-square steel door, and removed the contents from the safe box, which was lined with quilted padding. A one-quart jar.
He put the jar on a brushed-steel and zebrawood desk and sat down to study its contents.
After a few minutes, he could no longer resist the siren call of the candy bowl. He pondered the contents of the Lalique container and finally selected a Hershey’s bar with almonds.
He would not brush his teeth again. Falling asleep with the taste of chocolate in his mouth was a sinful pleasure. Sometimes he was a bad boy.
