All for a Sister by Allison Pittman Read Free Book Online Page B

the next hour or so. Do you have something to do while you wait?”
    “Oh.” Her pretty lips formed the letter and the word. “I thought I might . . . That is, I was wondering if I couldn’t sit in.”
    “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he said, much to Dana’s relief. She couldn’t help but feel her own twinge of triumph. “Wait here.” He disappeared into his office and immediately returned with a book. “Publishers are always sending me these things. Who has time? You read it and let me know if it is a good story or not.”
    “Oh,” Celeste said again. “All right.” She took the book and held it as if experiencing the sensation for the first time. Dana felt a familiar twinge of jealousy. Imagine, someone inviting you to read a book. A brand-new one, just given away.
    “And you can sit at Miss Lynch’s place, if you like. If Lon Chaney calls, take a message.”
    “Yes, sir, Mr. Ostermann.” Celeste seemed far more pleased at the idea than did Miss Lynch, who plucked five sharpened pencils from the clay cup on her desk before holding the door to let Dana pass.
    Not until she crossed the threshold did Dana realize she’d been waiting to return to this room. It was, to date, the one place in California where she felt comfortable. Celeste’s home was nothing but one wide-open space flowing into another. The streets outside were loud and crowded. Even the sky loomed toolarge to feel like it could pin itself at the corners and hold creation. Ostermann’s office was small and somewhat dark. Easier for her eyes even after Miss Lynch lit the lamp in the corner where she sat. It smelled of paper and cigarettes—warmth. The chair she’d occupied before waited for her again, and without being asked, she sat down.
    “You are doing well?” Ostermann asked as he settled himself behind his cluttered desk.
    “Yes, thank you, Mr. Ostermann.”
    “Call me Werner. And you and Miss DuFrane? You are getting better acquainted?”
    Dana nodded. “She’s not . . . home, very often.”
    “Youth,” he said, then immediately looked uncomfortable. “But to matters at hand. What shall we talk about today? Would you perhaps like to tell me about the night you were arrested?”
    She felt herself grow cold, her blood as frigid as the rain that had pelted the windows during the storm that night. He’d asked the same question at their last meeting, and the purposefulness behind the question proved he hadn’t simply forgotten. It was some sort of a trick. A trap, maybe, but she took a familiar step aside.
    “I told you already. I don’t remember much about that.” Though she did, every detail. The color felt thick upon her lips, and she dared not close her mouth lest she not be able to open it again. “Only what’s been told to me.”
    “No, no. Tell me only what you know. What you remember and what you saw and what you heard. I need to see this all revealed through your eyes. Perhaps something about the trial.”
    “There was no trial, Mr. Ostermann. If there had been, perhaps there’d be no story at all.”
    “But there had to have been—”
    “An inquest. A coroner’s inquest in the DuFrane home, because Mrs. DuFrane was too distraught to leave the house. Right there in the front parlor, where I’d been serving tea just a few days before.”
    And here, finally, she would have the chance to speak.

INTERIOR: A well-appointed parlor decorated in a lush Victorian style. Center is an ornate wooden table, long and narrow, where three distinguished men wearing dark suits sit in a line. The man on the far left is the county coroner. He is reading aloud from an official-looking dossier.
    CLOSE-UP: Typewritten certificate of death.
    FOCUS: Cause of death: suffocation.
    CUT TO: Young Dana, set apart from the gathered company.
    CUT TO: Mr. and Mrs. DuFrane, she draped in magnificent Victorian mourning clothes. She has collapsed in her chair and weeps into the handkerchief proffered by her husband.
    CUT