A Dangerous Widow (Dangerous #1)

by Christina Ross

  “Mrs. Stone,” Kate corrected.

  “Of course,” the woman said, and when she said that, Kate caught the woman glance up at her partner, whose face was grim. “Mrs. Stone, I’m afraid that there’s been an accident that involves your husband.”

  “An accident?” she said. “Is Michael hurt? I just left him two hours ago.”

  “There is no easy way to say this…”

  Oh, my God…

  “I’m sorry to be the one giving you this news…”

  This can’t be happening…

  “But your husband is dead, Mrs. Stone. By all accounts, it appears to have been an accident—”

  The woman might have said more, but Kate didn’t hear it. Instead, the last thing she remembered was the swell of darkness that overcame her as she fainted and fell to the floor.

  * * *

  The rest of the day was a horrible blur.

  She only remembered pieces of the block of time that came after she got the news about Michael—being escorted out of the Bank of America Tower, the press that were waiting outside to take her photograph as she was ushered into one of the waiting police cruisers, and then the even larger swarm of media who were waiting for her at Michael’s and her townhouse on Park.

  Dead, she thought, still unable to comprehend it. Somehow, Michael is dead. How can this be? How could this have happened?

  “We’ll get you into your home as swiftly as possible,” the female officer said as she placed a hand on Kate’s arm. The woman was sitting in the back of the cruiser next to her. What had she said her name was? Officer Ward? Kate was in such a state of shock, she couldn’t remember. She looked out the car’s front and side windows, saw photographers taking shots of her, and somehow came back into herself despite the fact that she felt faint again.

  “Are you with me?” the woman asked again.

  “Get me inside,” Kate said. “They’ve already stolen enough of me.”

  “Then take my hand,” the officer said in a kind voice that Kate registered as genuine. “We’ll get out on my side—it’s closest to the sidewalk. The door to your home is just steps away from us.” And then she just stopped and studied Kate’s face. “Look, I’m concerned about you. I know you don’t want to faint in front of that crowd. Do you need another moment?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. If you’re with me, we can get away from the press quickly. But I need you to focus and to keep up, as difficult as that sounds. But I’ll have your back. So, hold tightly onto my hand. I’ve got you.”

  And she did.

  The moment they exited the cruiser, the officer gripped Kate’s hand in her own. Despite the rise of voices that shouted at her as she stepped out of the car and onto the sidewalk, and the staccato flashes of lights that encompassed her as she was led toward her front door, Kate dug down deep, held it together as best she could, and soon found herself in the vestibule, with the door closed firmly behind her.

  “Are you all right?” the officer asked.

  Kate didn’t respond. Ahead of her, she saw officers moving in the foyer. More flashes of light, but these lights were somehow colder. And there was Lydia, crying somewhere in the distance.

  “I’m here for you,” the woman said. “And by the way, my name is Anna. And I’m so sorry, Mrs. Stone. All of us are.”

  As wealthy as she had become through her own hard-won successes and through Michael’s business hitting it big several years ago, Kate Stone remained, at heart, Kate O’Malley, the middle-class girl from Vermont who was raised by good parents that had instilled within her a sense of humility and kindness. And because of that, it was purely knee-jerk when she said, “Please—call me Kate.”

  “If you wish.”

  “Where is he?” Kate asked.

  “In the foyer.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Do you know a Lydia Brown?”

  “Of course. She’s our cleaning lady. She was scheduled to clean today. And she’s here now. I can hear her crying.”

  “She’s shaken.”

  “What happened here? What happened to my husband?”

  “Mrs. Brown was washing the foyer’s floor when your husband came to the top of the stairs to speak to her. Apparently, you have a Great Dane?”

  “Bruiser,” she said.

  “This is what Mrs. Brown witnessed and has testified to—when your husband approached the stairs, Bruiser allegedly rushed up them to greet him, but when he did, he clipped Mr. Stone at the knees, and Mr. Stone tripped over him and fell hard down the stairs. By all appearances—and given the hysterical state Mrs. Brown was in when she called 911—your husband fell over Bruiser, tumbled down the staircase, and broke his neck, according to the M.E. If this means anything to you, I was told that his death was instant. I’m so sorry, Mrs.—Kate,” she said, correcting herself. “I’m so sorry, Kate.”

  “I need to see him.”

  “My strongest recommendation is that you don’t see him now. Please trust me on this. There will be time for that later—when we’ll need for you to identify his body. But not like this.”

  “Take me to my husband,” she said.

  “Kate,” Anna said.

  There was steel in her voice when she said, “I asked you to take me to my husband. He’s alone now. Do you even understand how awful that is? To be surrounded by people who don’t know or love him? Take me to him, or I’ll go by myself. I will not have him lying alone. Right now, he needs me just as much as I need him.”

  * * *

  Since the enormous, curving staircase emptied into the marble-tiled foyer, the first thing Kate saw when she stepped into the space wasn’t the men and women in uniform who stopped to face her while they removed their hats.

  Instead, it was the plain white sheet that had been placed over Michael’s body at the foot of the stairs.

  She’d know his body anywhere—even in death and concealed by a sheet. After all, in their own bed, how many times over the years had she woken to find him lying on his stomach, arms stretched out on either side of him, legs sprawled out as if he alone owned the bed?

  And with his head turned to the right—as it appeared to be now?

  Michael was indeed beneath that sheet, but this time she wouldn’t be able to wake him. This time she wouldn’t be able to wish him good morning and slink out of bed to make them coffee so he could enjoy another ten minutes of sleep. This time there would be no other times between them—all of that was over now and their lives together were finished—which had seemed unreal to her when his death was first announced to her, but which now felt real to her in ways that made her close her eyes in pain and lean on Anna.

  “Do you have family here, Kate? Somebody we can call? To help you through this?”

  “All of my family is in Vermont.”

  “Can I call any of them for you?”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll do that myself—when all of you are gone.”

  “As for Michael?”

  “His parents are closer, but they don’t live in Manhattan. They live in upstate New York.” She looked at Anna. “Have they been notified about what’s happened?”

  “I tried to call his parents, but I got no answer.”

  “His parents are mall walkers,” Kate said. “They walk three miles every day around this time, so they very well might be at the mall and unaware of any of this. And I hope that’s the case. I want to tell them myself. But right now, if it’s OK, I’d like to be alone with my husband. Has everyone here finished? Can I go over to him now? Touch him? Be with him?”

  “You can.”

  “Would it be too much to ask for the room to be cleared so Michael and I can be alone together?”

  “I’m afraid that, due to protocol, at least one of us needs to be here.”

  “Can that person be you?”

  “It can.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

 
“Then let me take care of that.”

  When Anna did, Kate walked over to the sheet covering Michael. At first, because there were so many people in her house—strangers she didn’t know or want to know—she thought that she might get through this without completely breaking down. As a New Englander, it was in her roots not to do so.

  But that wasn’t the case now.

  The moment she touched Michael’s back and felt the chill of his skin through the thin sheet, she put her hand to her mouth and began to cry in ways that she hadn’t cried since…ever.

  With heaving sobs—and with the reality that the love of her life was dead because of some fucking accident with their dog—all she could do was lay herself over the sheet, and press herself against Michael’s body.

  She draped herself over him, and when she did, she felt how stiff his body already was becoming, which stabbed at her heart again. She then gently lifted the sheet away from his face and saw his dead eyes, wide open and staring at some point just beyond her. Gone were the deep blue eyes she knew so well—now, they were only wide pools of black as his pupils had become fully dilated in death.

  “Michael,” she said. “Oh, my God, Michael…”

  “Kate,” Anna said.

  “Please leave me alone,” Kate said in despair. Her heart was literally breaking at that point. Tears streamed down her face as an overwhelming sense of grief overcame her. “Let me have this moment alone with him. Please!”

  “Of course,” Anna said as she retreated to a corner of the room.

  But Kate barely heard her. She pulled the sheet back farther and saw how Michael’s neck was bent in an unnatural position.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said as she cried. “I’m so sorry, Michael. How am I to carry on without you? How am I even to wake up without you by my side? Why did this have to happen to you? To us? We haven’t even had a child yet! That was to come this year! Why the fuck has this happened?!” she screamed. “It’s not right—it’s not fair. I love you, my darling. I hope that you know that—that you can hear me even now, wherever you are, hopefully in this room with me. I will love you until the end of my life. And when that day comes, we’ll be together again. I can promise you that. So, go,” she said. “Set yourself free. I know how you are—you’re only going to worry about me. You’ll want to stay near me. But don’t. Somehow, I’ll get through this. Go and live out the rest of your life in the afterlife. See your family and friends again. Tell your grandparents that I love and miss them. I’ll be with you soon enough.”

  After the long moments it took for her to collect herself, Kate Stone lowered her lips to her husband’s cool lips, and she kissed him in death while her gut clenched in despair.

  When she finished, she placed the palm of her hand on the floor to steady herself, carefully wrapped the sheet around his body in such a way that cradled him as he lay there, and then bowed her head and burst into the sort of tears, grief, anger, and loss that would echo throughout her heart for the rest of her life.

  BOOK ONE

  FIVE YEARS LATER

  KATE’S STORY

  CHAPTER ONE

  New York City

  May

  After a long, cold winter and an unreasonably chilly spring, I woke with a smile, knowing that at last it would be in the high seventies for the rest of the week. Finally, we were in for a great stretch of weather.

  And I was psyched for it.

  I got out of bed, went straight to one of the bedroom’s two windows, whipped aside the curtains, and looked out at the Park. The sky was blue. The sun was bright. And when I placed the palm of my hand against the window, I could feel the day’s warmth pulsing against it.

  Lunch with Laura at noon? Bring it on.

  I showered, went down to the kitchen, made coffee, read bits and pieces from the Times, and then went into my office to read and answer a host of emails from the team I managed as Director of Corporate Gifts at the Red Cross in Manhattan.

  When I sat down at my desk, I caught sight of the photograph of Michael sitting next to my computer—and once again felt the sting of his loss.

  Five years might have passed since his death, but I still loved him, I still missed him, and even though years of therapy had helped me to realize that I must move on with my life, I had to wonder whether I’d ever meet anyone as magnificent as he had been. I doubted it, but I knew that if Michael were to whisper into my ear right then, he would have told me that I should have moved on years ago.

  “I can understand mourning me for a year,” he would have said with that sly sense of humor of his. “I mean, I’m totally worth that. But five years? Come on, Kate—I’m gone now, and it’s time for you to move on and find somebody else.”

  Could I? There were times when I struggled with the idea of being with someone other than Michael. A part of me wanted to be married again and to raise the family that Michael and I had been robbed of having, but there was another part of me that felt like if I did, it would be a kind of betrayal.

  Which Michael would have considered ridiculous.

  While I looked at him, I thought of how radically my life had changed since his death.

  For the past four-and-a-half years, I’d lived in one of the two triplex penthouses at the San Remo on Central Park West. Retaining the townhouse on Park was out of the question because it reminded me too much of Michael’s death. So I sold it and moved to the San Remo. And because I knew nothing about the encryption software market, I had no choice but to also sell Michael’s company in an effort to protect his legacy.

  StoneTech went to QuantumCo, an industry force whose team hadn’t just impressed me with their knowledge of the software Michael had built and perfected. In a two-hour meeting, they’d also shown me in a series of presentations how they could expand upon Michael’s vision—and lift it into the stratosphere. Four billion dollars later, I began a new phase of my life—one filled with focus and purpose.

  I’d become an unlikely philanthropist. Four billion dollars was a ridiculous sum of money for one person to have in their possession. So, to honor Michael’s life, I’d set up a trust and created the Stone Foundation, which would use most of that money to improve people’s lives long after I was dead.

  “Your name will live on,” I said, glancing back at the photograph. “I’ve made certain of that.”

  I checked the time on the computer and saw with a start that my lunch date with Laura was only ninety minutes away—and I wasn’t even dressed.

  You need to hustle, I thought.

  And I did.

  * * *

  The restaurant Laura chose for us was called “The Chubby Italian,” which was an adorable little hole in the wall on Prince Street. Laura had been raving about the place for weeks “because the lasagna is to die for, Kate. You have no idea.”

  But I was about to find out.

  When I paid the driver, stepped out of the cab, and entered the packed space, I went up to the Rubenesque, fortysomething woman standing behind the front counter with her hands on her hips.

  “You’re here for the lasagna, aren’t you?” she said.

  “I—how do you know that?”

  “Everyone comes for the lasagna. Total no-brainer.”

  “In fact, that is why I’m here. I’m also here to see my best friend.”

  “Who’s your best friend?”

  “Laura Sanders. Do you happen to know if she’s here?”

  “The mouthy one?” the woman said. “Oh, she’s here—and we love that girl. I think she’s been here four times this month for the lasagna alone. She’s in the back. Tarted up to the nines as usual. Come with me, hotness. I say that you start with the house red, which is as full-bodied as me—if that’s even possible.”

  “I’m a martini kind of girl. Wine makes me sleepy.”

  “Then you must be Laura’s friend. She’s already on her first.”

  “Dirty, I assume?”

  “Filthy.”

  “Well, goodness,” I said as I fo
llowed her through the narrow space. “What a surprise.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You know, I might also need a martini,” I said. “But just with a twist.”

  “You got it,” the woman said as we approached Laura’s table. When she saw me, Laura lifted her martini to me before taking a sip from it. “And there’s your friend,” the woman said. “Look at her. Nothing but pure trouble, this one. Her eyes have become saucers filled with the promise of homemade lasagna.”

  “I live for your lasagna,” Laura said. “Have you two been introduced?”

  “We haven’t,” I said.

  “Kate, this is Patrizia Abbadelli. She and her two sisters—Ambra and Genoveffa—share ownership of this wonderful place. In my eyes, all of them are bellissima.”

  “I see what you’re up to, Laura,” Patrizia said. “Being as sweet as Genoveffa’s cannoli isn’t going to get you an extra portion of lasagna. Just so you know.”

  “Damn it!”

  “But good try. Here, love,” she said as she pulled out my chair for me. “Have a seat. I’ll get you that martini. Gin? Vodka? Any preference on the brand?”

  “Oh, vodka,” I said. “Do you have Grey Goose?”

  “We’ve got the Goose.” And then her eyes sparkled. “So, let me just be clear here. I’m about to give you a goose with a twist?”

  I laughed when she said that. “I suppose you are—and since it’s been a while since that’s happened, please give it all you’ve got.”

  “Careful what you wish for. Now, if you want to waste some time, have a look at the menu. I’ll be back with your martini in a second, and then I’ll take your orders for the lasagna.”

  “She’s fantastic,” I said as Patrizia walked away.

  “She’s one of the reasons we live in this city.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m a third of a martini down and spring has finally sprung. I’m great.”