Crying Child by Barbara Michaels Read Free Book Online Page A

cheek I could see the livid marks of her nails. I started toward him.
    “Get out,” he said. “Get out of here, Jo.”
    I fell back a step as the door slammed in my face.

Chapter
    3
    I WAS LURED DOWNSTAIRS NEXT MORNING BY THEsmells from the kitchen—bacon and eggs and coffee and muffins, fresh out of the oven. The muffins were dark with cinnamon and sticky with warm sugar. I ate three of them, sitting at the kitchen table while Mrs. Willard watched approvingly.
    “Don’t suppose you usually eat a decent breakfast,” she said. “That instant stuff, or dry cereal. That’s just like grass. No body to it.”
    “If I ate like this every morning, I’d gain five pounds a week,” I mumbled, through my third muffin. “It might be worth it, at that…. Where is everybody? Am I late or early?”
    “Ran already had breakfast. He’s in the library; said he had some work to do this morning.”

    “What about Mary?”
    Mrs. Willard turned away to wipe an already immaculate counter top.
    “I take hers up to her. She doesn’t sleep too good.”
    “I know.”
    Mrs. Willard turned. Her pink face was impassive, but from the cloth in her hand a small trickle of water dripped down onto the spotless floor. Her fingers must have been tightly clenched to squeeze water from a cloth she had already wrung out.
    “She was up again last night?”
    “Yes. You lock her in?”
    “It’s Ran’s orders.”
    It is useless to speculate on what would have developed if I had spoken out then and there. Probably it wouldn’t have made any difference. We were not ready, either of us, for the kind of confidences that could have changed the course of events. She didn’t trust me, and I had reservations about speaking candidly to her. She had known Ran for years, and helped to raise him. How could I tell Ran’s old friend and foster mother that I was beginning to suspect his treatment of my sister?
    And yet, with my well-known propensity for babbling, I might have spoken, if we had not been interrupted. The shadow fell across the floor between us like a long dark bar, dividing our lockedglances as effectively as a wall. Mrs. Willard started, and I turned, half rising from my chair.
    “Good morning, all,” said Will Graham. Framed by the open door, one long brown hand resting against it, he grinned at us. “You two look as guilty as a pair of thieves. What did I interrupt, some deep dark female gossip?”
    “Gossip indeed,” said Mrs. Willard tartly. “I know what you’re here for, and if you think you’re going to talk me out of another breakfast, Willie Graham, you’d better keep a civil tongue in your head.”
    “How many times have I asked you not to call me Willie?” Will glanced at me; I tried, unsuccessfully, to wipe the grin off my face.
    “You mean I can’t call you Willie?” I asked. “I would dearly love to.”
    “Not unless you learn to make muffins.” Will sat down across from me. “Women who make muffins can call me anything. I’m very susceptible to muffins.”
    “You’re susceptible to any kind of food,” Mrs. Willard scoffed. She handed him a plate.
    “I’ve been up since five,” Will said. “If that doesn’t rate another breakfast, I don’t know what does. And it wasn’t your cooking that brought me here, so don’t look so smug. I came to ask Jo if she’d like to go for a walk. I thought she might like to see my house.”

    “It’s those beasts you’re wanting to show off,” Mrs. Willard said. Her voice was so grim I visualized some monstrous menagerie—lions or crocodiles or snakes.
    “That’s ridiculous,” Will said indignantly. “Here I am trying to entertain a visitor and all you can do is insult me.” He took a muffin. “I’m leaving. Are you coming, Jo?”
    I gave him a suspicious look, which he countered with his famous smile. I told myself it wasn’t the smile that made me weaken; if the man was trying, in his clumsy male fashion, to apologize for his outrageous remarks the