Read Online Kaleidoscope by Dorothy Gilman - Free Book Online Page A

heartrending.”
    Harbinger nodded sympathetically. “You’ll sell this apartment?”
    She nodded, and touched her eyes again, very delicately, with the handkerchief. “It would be unbearable now.”
    â€œTrafton will miss you,” he said politely.
    â€œI’d keep the condominium in Manhattan, of course.” She was thoughtful a moment, and then, “How much estate tax will there be on thirty million, Everett?”
    Harbinger said smoothly, “You will have to consult your accountant about that, but you mistake the amount that you’ll inherit; it will be fifteen million, not thirty million.”
    â€œFifteen!”
she said sharply, too sharply, and covered this with a quick smile. “You have to be mistaken, the will that we made eight years ago left me thirty million.”
    â€œThe will of eight years ago, yes,” said Harbinger, “but that has been changed, you see.”
    â€œChanged!
Changed?
” She stared at him incredulously. “I don’t believe it; how can you say that? John couldn’t— There were to be some adjustments made, yes, and we were to see you—tomorrow, wouldn’t it be?”
    â€œTrue.” Harbinger nodded. “But ten days ago your husband came alone to my office to make those so-called adjustments, to make them himself. A matter of conscience, no doubt. I believe he’d already discussed it with you, dividing his estate.”
    â€œWhat?”
She gasped. “But I told him
no
—absolutely
not
, that it wouldn’t be fair. You’re saying that he did that in spite of— No, John would never do that to me, it’s impossible.”
    â€œI’m sure you recall what he discussed with you,” Harbinger pointed out. “He leaves fifteen million to you, fifteen to the Trafton Home for Disabled Children.”
    â€œBut that’s
cruel
!” she cried. “It’s not fair. That awful place with those depressing cripples?” Too angry to notice their shocked faces she said, “It’s Jenny— retarded, surely—who murdered him. It’s insane, she killed him, she drove that terrible dagger into him with such
force
, and to leave his money—”
    Pruden interrupted to say politely, “I believe you told the police that night that you were in the kitchen; you couldn’t possibly have learned with what force—”
    â€œI mean I
heard
it,” she said, momentarily confused but defiant. “I
heard
it,” and turning to Harbinger, “How could you let my husband do this to me, change the will like that, without me there. How
could
you! I’m his
wife
.”
    â€œAs I said before, a matter of conscience?” suggested Harbinger.
    â€œI’ll sue,” she flung at him angrily, eyes glittering, no longer a bereaved widow now.
    Harbinger said dryly, “I really doubt that any judge or jury would find you deprived when he’d left you fifteen million.”
    She stared at him in shock, and then at Pruden and Swope. If she had expected sympathy she found none, and there was the faintest hint of her beginning to unravel. “But you can’t do this,” she protested, and there were tears in her eyes.
    The shock of her husband’s betrayal was obviously a blow but Pruden wondered what dreams and plans for that thirty million had driven her; whatever it was, it was shattering that masklike poise and confidence. Fifteen million wasn’t enough; she’d unwittingly made it obvious that she’d never shared her husband’s interest in his charities, and possibly not even in her husband, John Epworth.
She’s a hard woman under that
facade,
he realized,
but not hard enough,
and he shrank at what lay ahead.
    â€œYou can’t do this,” she repeated, tears staining her cheeks. “John would never have done such a thing. If he was alive—”
    â€œBut he isn’t alive,” said