Too Easy by Bruce Deitrick Price Page A

seems to Robert. Well, really.
    â€œOh,” he says. “Maybe it’s that promotion you’ve been upset about. I just wish you wouldn’t let it get you down.” He smiles at her. “Maybe it’s a lucky break, you know, in disguise. Do you really want a lot more responsibility?”
    She shrugs, seeming to consider the question carefully.
    â€œI mean,” he hastens on, “don’t you have more time the way things are now? In case, well,” he almost says we have children, “you want to travel . . . or whatever.”
    She stares carefully at him. “Well, maybe you’re right.”
    He wipes some dishes, thinking, God, who knows what she’ll do? I mean, once she knows, there’s no turning back,no putting things in a different light. Hello, I’m in love, I want out—that’s a lot for her to deal with. She might get crazy on me. . . .
    â€œYes,” Robert says after a moment, “it probably is a blessing, you know, in disguise.”

Chapter
16
    â€¢  Sunday around two, Anne sits at her desk in the upstairs den, looking over the bank statement, balancing their checkbooks, hers and Robert’s. “Anne,” he told her the first year they were married, “if my checkbook’s only ten or twenty dollars off, that’s good enough for me.” She smiles, still not able to believe anybody could mean that.
    At work, she has to make hundred-million-dollar budgets work out to the penny. If her own finances weren’t handled the same way, she’d feel indecent, like going to the office without her clothes on.
    Anne glances at her watch, thinks about her plan to leave Robert alone in the house. “Yes,” she says softly, “I’m doing it.” Alone for two hours, all by himself, nothing but Robert and a lot of phones.
    She imagines the dark technology hidden in her basement. Waiting there for . . . what?
    For Robert to call . . . whom?
    Anne finishes with the checkbooks, then goes downstairs to the kitchen. She stares out the window into the backyard, sees Robert stretched out on one of the lounge chairs, reading the Times. Sections of the huge Sunday edition scattered on the grass.
    Very bright out there. Definitely a spring day. Well, about time. But it must be still chilly. Robert’s wearing a burgundy windbreaker.
    She goes to the front closet to find a light coat, then out to talk to Robert.
    â€œAnything I have to read?”
    She stands near the foot of the chair, her arms crossed over her chest.
    â€œThe chess column,” he jokes. “You can kind of skim over the rest. One of these days they’ll be competition. . . .” He grins handsomely. Or is it tensely? “But not yet.”
    â€œOf course not,” she says loyally. She walks over to look at the flower beds. “Things’ll be coming up in a few weeks!”
    â€œThey better.”
    â€œWell,” she says, “I have a little shopping to do.”
    He stares at her, eyebrows up. “Need any help?” Wanting to say—half a second from saying— Anne, we have to talk.
    â€œOh, no,” she tells him, “you stay here. Rest up for tennis.”
    â€œWilsons at four, right?” He can’t say it. Damn, why is it so damned hard to do?
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’ll come along if you want.”
    â€œNo, no. I have to see somebody about slipcovers. Boring.” Like me.
    â€œAlright,” he says, settling back. Is he relieved? She’s not sure. Maybe.
    â€œI’ll be back by, let’s see, three thirty,” she says as she turns toward the house. “Don’t worry,” she adds. “I won’t be late.”
    Anne goes through the house toward the car. The goodwife on the way to do errands. She smiles faintly, bitterly. What errands? Call it what it is, she thinks. I’m setting a trap.
    Anne gets in the car,