Читать книгу Creatures of the Chase - Mikail - L. M. Ollie - Страница 11

Gazpacho soup, assorted bread rolls, cold cuts and salad; the last meal Sarah would enjoy in the dining room at Cavendish Hall for at least a year and a day. Next to her sat Sarquazi’s lawyer Kevin Brosner. He would be accompanying her back to Morocco on board Sarquazi’s ship the Sorrento. Across the table sat Carl and Jack, side by side. The chair at the head of the table was of course vacant except for the memories of Richard Develin and Yusuf Sarquazi.

Carl and Jack waited for Sarah to be seated first, assisted by Brosner. She glanced briefly in the direction of the empty chair. An unmistakable flicker of heartache caressed her face but it was a brief visit. Grief, she had learned was a personal journey; the memories belonged just to her and no one else and she knew she would have to work through the pain and the loss day by day, night by night until it ceased hurting and she would reach a plateau where she could celebrate the brief time she had enjoyed with two extraordinary men. She was looking forward to that day.

‘Jean was right,’ Carl thought as he watched Sarah, ‘she misses them both which probably explains why she seldom eats in the formal dining room, preferring instead her apartment or the Conservatory, sharing her meal with that damn bird Oliver. How strange is that?’

But, considering what she had been through, strange just doesn’t cut it, does it Carl?

She was razor thin, her skin pale and delicate almost as if touching her even gently would leave a bruise.

‘Delicate but strong; please God I hope so, considering.’

Carl noticed that she wore only two rings on her left hand: Sarquazi’s diamond solitaire and Richard’s simple gold band. Carl wondered if Sarah thought about Alan Rose very often. Somehow he doubted it.

He had called Alan at his townhouse but there was no answer. It was early in the morning in Boston so he was probably on his way to work; caught in traffic. When he told Jack this in a brief aside, Jack just nodded his head hiding in a gesture sudden alarm.