Read Online The Lazarus Trap by Davis Bunn - Free Book Online

assure you.” Swiftly he related the day’s events.
    â€œDo you mean to tell me he was in the bank when the terrorists attacked?”
    â€œThey don’t know that it was terrorists. And his location has not yet been confirmed. All we can say with any certainty is that neither he nor his colleague have been heard from since.”
    She mulled that over. “I can’t say I’ll be sorry to see the back of that man. No doubt you feel the same.”
    Terrance was too aware of the thousand eyes to respond.
    â€œYour sister was sweet on him, I suppose you know that.”
    â€œYes.” Which added a very special flavor to the moment.
    She misunderstood the gleam to his eyes. “I would prefer that you maintain proper civility with your sister.”
    â€œOf course.”
    But she was not fooled. “Why do you despise her so?”
    â€œI suppose there is too much of Father in her for my taste.”
    His mother started to respond, then let it slide. “I am hosting a charity dinner tonight at the club.”
    He accepted his dismissal and turned to go. His mother had been in Orlando for only seven years. Yet already she ruled the upper tiers of what passed for the social hierarchy. She was lithe and very fit and professionally slender. Her face and neck were miracles of modern surgery. Some people took pride in aging well. Eleanor d’Arcy had no intention of giving time’s passage an inch.
    Returning across the bridge, Terrance was halted by a sudden realization. He had mentioned his father. He never did that. Terrance could not remember the last time he had spoken about his father. Years. To bring him up now was a serious breach. To not even notice it at the time was far worse.
    Despite the evening’s closeness, a chill sweat pressed from his forehead. He could afford no such slipups. He must control everything. Right down to the smallest detail. Eyes would soon be holding them under constant scrutiny.
    He entered the house via the kitchen and began warming up the meal prepared by his maid. He was not the least bit hungry. He had felt no craving for food since this critical phase of their plan had begun. He ate his meal standing at the granite-topped center console. He turned the pages of the Journal as he forked the food into his mouth. Nothing registered, neither the food nor the news. The television in the recessed alcove above the oven was tuned to MSNBC. Twice while he ate, the bank’s charred image flashed on screen. The first time he used the remote to turn up the volume. The other time he left the image silent. The television was merely background activity for the theater he was shaping. The newscasters had nothing new to report.
    He finished his meal and moved to the apartment he had fashioned from the house’s far end. The first room opened both to the house and the apartment’s private rooms. Terrance did not turn on any lights. The rooms were horribly bare. In the dim light that followed him from the living room, Terrance was able to reshape the rooms in his mind.
    Terrance had always been alone. Even as a child, Terrance had known he inhabited a solitary universe. The tight core of seclusion never altered. Nothing could reach him. Terrance could stand in the middle of a dense pack of people and remain trapped within his interior void. Only one person had ever managed to pierce his shields and enter the hidden spaces. This room had been meant for her daughter. The next was a studio apartment for the nanny. After Terrance had secretly torn her former husband apart bit by mangled bit, Val’s wife had finally agreed to enter Terrance’s world. Then, at the last moment and without warning, she had fled to Miami. Terrance had gone wild with rage, smashing the handcrafted nursery furniture with a ball-peen hammer.
    That night, after the fury had subsided, Terrance had confessed to his mother. How the core of his being was filled with a void. How he