Death Wears a Beauty Mask and Other Stories by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online Page A

apartment. Just dropped her off around nine o’clock. So you’re the people from London. How about that? Wait till I tell the missus. Believe me, miss, New York is just a little town after all. I’m not kiddin’. There’s more of this sort of thing than you’d guess in a hundred years.”
    Alexandra was home. Alexandra was home. She’d just been away and she’d come home in time to meet the flight that she’d expected Janice to be on. Janice felt hysterical tears of relief crowding her throat. She forced them back. Everything was all right. Everything was fine. In just a few minutes they’d be laughing about the mix-up. She leaned back and closed her eyes, aware of the throbbing in her forehead.
    In less than fifteen minutes the cabbie said, “Here we are.” He turned into the driveway and went around the building to the first private entrance. Two steps led to the enclosed terrace of Alexandra’s apartment. When Janice looked up, she saw a light in the living room window.
    She almost fell in her rush to get out of the cab. Mike caught her as she tripped. “Easy, honey.” He paid the driver as Janice hurried up the stairs. She became aware of the ache in her back and shoulders.
    The door of the apartment was locked. Impatiently she waited while Mike reached in his pocket for the key. He turned the key and opened the door. Janice rushed past him. She started to call Alexandra’s name but it froze on her lips. From the foyer she stared into the living room. The lamp on the table next to the club chair was on and like a spotlight it illuminated the figure in the chair.
    Alexandra was wearing the Pucci print. But she wasn’t waiting for anyone. She was slumped back in the chair, her beautiful blonde hair tousled around her neck and shoulders, a narrow cord around her throat. Her face was white, thick chalk white. Little droplets of blood had dripped from her lips. Her huge blue eyes were open and staring at Janice . . . through Janice.
    Janice opened her mouth to scream but no sound came. She tried to move but could not. She raised her hand to hide the nightmarish sight. But when she touched her forehead she vibrated to the soreness there and knew this was no dream. She felt Mike’s arms go around her, but tore herself away from him. She began to scream, a shrill tearing sound as she stumbled across the room, threw herself down in front of the chair and reached up her arms to embrace her dead sister. The still warm body crumpled against her shoulder. As she screamed Alexandra’s name, she was barely aware of Mike’s strong hands grasping her fingers, forcing them open and half carrying, half dragging her out of the room.
    â€œI’m so sorry, honey. You shouldn’t touch the body. We have to call the police.”
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    Hubert Twaddle, age fifty-two, a big man, stout without being fat, with a shining dome rimmed by mostly salt-and-pepper hair, was the head detective in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
    He knew that his name, Hubert Twaddle, made the people he met for the first time try to conceal an involuntary smile. They didn’t know that Twaddle was a familiar name in Scotland. Twaddle chuckled to himself as he recalled voting for Hubert Humphrey solely on the basis of their shared first name.
    People didn’t realize that by their inclination to smile, they were also psychologically relaxing. Hubert Twaddle found that fact enormously helpful when he was questioning a family member, friend, associate or enemy of a murder victim.
    They had been called back to the office earlier that evening to interview a witness in a homicide case. Moments after they had finished, a call had come from the local precinct of West 74th Street at 11:30 P.M. Famed Alexandra Saunders, the beautiful fashion model, had been found murdered in her apartment.
    Hubert Twaddle did not waste words. “I