A Share in Death

“Didn’t sleep.” She slumped down in the chair as if it had taken all her effort to stand up.

“Can I get you anything? Toast? Coffee?”

“Coffee would be nice, thanks.”

Kincaid poured another cup and sat down opposite her, pushing the milk and sugar across the table. She stirred her coffee for a moment before meeting his eyes, then tried a wan smile. “I feel an idiot coming here like this. I thought I’d say ‘we need to talk,’ but I realized it’s not true, really. It’s I who needs to talk.” Hannah paused and looked away for a moment, moving her shoulders in a little self-deprecating shrug. “I feel I owe you some explanation for the way I’ve behaved. It’s not—”

“Why should you feel that?” Kincaid asked, puzzled. “I’ve no reason to pass judgment on you.”

“Oh god, Duncan, don’t protest. It only makes this more humiliating for me. Then I start to think I was only imagin-

 

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ing that there was … I don’t know … some feeling, some rapport… between us. It’s happened to me once or twice before. You meet someone, spend an evening together, find yourselves talking as if you’d known each other for years, saying things you wouldn’t say to people you had known for years.” Her smile was rueful. “It’s a rare gift, an evening like that, and one I hadn’t planned on.”

 

At least, thought Kincaid, she was more honest than he. There had been some spark of affinity, of possibility, between them and he had felt hurt to find her sharing the same sudden intimacy with Patrick Rennie. Not merely sexual jealousy, although there was a bit of that as well, but more a sense of confidence betrayed. “All right, Hannah. I’ll grant you that.” He looked at her carefully, noted the unaltered porcelain complexion and fine bone structure, noted also the drawn look around the shadowed eyes. “But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You’re not just worrying about my sensitive feelings.”

Hannah was shaking her head before he’d finished the sentence. “No. I mean yes. I don’t know.” Her hand jerked as she spoke, and her undrunk coffee slopped a milky pool on the table’s surface. “About Patrick. It’s not what you think.” The lift of Kincaid’s eyebrows would have done Peter Raskin credit. “I know how it must look.” She met Kincaid’s eyes. “That I’ve gone middle-aged gaga over any man who looks at me twice. It’s not like that at all. Oh, Jesus, I wish it were that simple.” She dropped her face into her hands, fingers splayed across her eyes.

“Hannah …” Kincaid reached out a hand to touch her, drew it back.