A Dangerous Glamour by Marc Olden

Author:Marc Olden [Olden, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-6001-2
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

IN 1970, ANNIE AND Byron had flown to Rome to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary and to try and save their crumbling marriage. From the window of a luxury flat on Via San Gregorio Annie looked down on a taxi as it glided to a halt almost directly below her. Her husband, unshaven and worried-looking, stepped from the cab and was immediately surrounded by uniformed and plainclothes police, who had been waiting in nearby doorways. Following a brief conversation, Byron looked up at the window. It was empty. Heartbroken, Annie stood with her back against the wall and wept. She didn’t see the police walk Byron across the street to a pair of cars parked in front of the Colosseum, where in the gathering darkness hundreds of screeching, tail-less cats prowled, observed only by homosexuals, who nightly used the ancient arena as a sexual hunting preserve.

The previous night, Byron, who among other things had given Annie years of infidelity and betrayal, had left her alone while he attended a party with a seventeen-year-old model. At dawn Annie had been waiting when a frightened Byron returned, ignored her, and poured himself a glass of brandy. His hands shook as he swallowed the alcohol in one gulp. He poured himself a second glass, drank most of it, then turned to face her.

“I’ve got trouble,” he said. “Someone’s dead.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Byron, because our marriage is dead, too. This is the last time you’ll ever hurt me. I’m tired of waiting for you to leave whatever woman you’re with and return to me. This was our anniversary, remember?”

“Senta’s dead. I’m—I’m not sure how it happened. I mean, it was just a party, but things got out of hand. Annie, she’s dead.”

Annie looked away. “You’ve hurt me and now you’ve killed a seventeen-year-old girl. And it wasn’t a party, was it, Byron? It was an orgy, La Dolce Vita with your rich friends, the kind of people you can’t resist. If those people killed Senta, then you helped them because you brought her to them.”

He rushed toward her, arms outstretched, pleading. “Annie—”

She stood up, her back to him. “Not this time, Byron, not this time. No more begging, no more excuses. Not this time, damn you, damn you! Byron, the manipulator, the man who manipulates his women, his models, and his wife, especially his wife.”

He touched her shoulder. “Annie, I need you. Senta’s dead.”

Spinning around, Annie slapped his face with all her strength. “You prick! You son of a bitch! A girl dies because of you and you want my sympathy. Well, you’re not getting it. Maybe she deserves it, but you don’t, not after all you’ve done to me. How much more am I supposed to give you? Isn’t fourteen years of my life enough for you? Wasn’t it enough that I gave you every cent I had and my soul along with it? Haven’t I watched you sleep around and lie to me and promise me it will never happen again while the both of us know you’re lying.

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