Watching Eagles Soar by Margaret Coel

Author:Margaret Coel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Sunshine flooded the Palace Arms at the Brown Palace Hotel. The velvet burgundy draperies, pulled to the sides and secured with golden rope. The tables, set with crisp, white linens and heavy silver flatware and vases of fresh roses. Not a vacant seat in the restaurant. Bunny settled back and sipped at the steaming coffee in the white porcelain cup. Beyond the windows, the morning traffic crawled down Seventeenth Street and serious-looking business types hurried along the sidewalk. Yesterday had been perfect: the boutiques in Cherry Creek, the Denver Country Club for lunch, the fine jewelry shops where she had treated herself to a diamond pendant and a Piaget watch; Sloan would expect no less. A peaceful night in the penthouse suite of the Brown Palace.

She spotted the pair of burly suits walking past the window outside. Everything was going as she planned. The two police detectives had come to inform Mrs. Sloan Pearl that she was now a grieving widow. They came through the restaurant door, went over to the blond, willowy hostess with the Hermès scarf arranged around the neck of her blue dress, and huddled for a moment around her desk, voices as subdued as water trickling over rocks. In a moment, the hostess came walking over. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Pearl,” she said, “but the two gentlemen from the Denver Police Department wish to have a word with you.”

Bunny hesitated for an appropriate moment before she said, “Send them over.”

“Mrs. Pearl?” The cop with the round, reddish face and Marine-style haircut stood on the other side of the table and held out a badge wallet. “Detective Garrity, DPD,” he said. “My partner, Detective Simson.” He gave a backward toss of his head toward the man hovering at his shoulder. “I’m afraid we have some very bad news for you.”

“Bad news?” Bunny said. “I don’t understand.”

“The hostess has made a private room available,” Garrity said. “Follow us, please.”

The room was located at the far end of the restaurant, all low, leather chairs, dark wood tables, and Oriental carpets, with sunlight refracted in the mullioned windows. Bunny had felt the eyes looking up from Eggs Benedict and waffles and coffee and following the progress across the restaurant of the stylish, beautiful woman and the two men who might as well have had neon lights blinking Cops on their backs. Highly embarrassing, and hardly part of her plans, but inconsequential next to a billion dollars. She had stepped into the room and perched on the edge of the leather chair nearest the door.

“What is it?” she asked again. She could hear her voice, breathless and filled with trepidation, as if she were prepared to break into tears at any moment.

The two detectives occupied the chairs on the other side of a small table. “I’m afraid your husband . . .” Garrity began.

“My husband! Oh, God, something’s happened to Sloan? Tell me it’s not true! Please, tell me he’s all right.”

The detective took his time, rubbing a knuckle around the edge of his chin, before he said, “Mr.

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