Fadeaway Girl by Martha Grimes Read Free Book Online Page B

kidnappers know she’d leave? And be gone long enough to get up that ladder and out again? You’d almost have to say it was arranged beforehand.”
    I slumped in my chair, hardly knowing what to say. I’d never thought the phone call was planned. “But how could it have been arranged beforehand unless Gloria Spiker was in on it? And not just Gloria, but her friend. For she did talk to a friend for twenty minutes. The operator confirmed it.” A conspiracy? That was even more exciting.
    â€œCould the kidnappers have been watching the room? Perhaps with binoculars? And see her leave?”
    â€œMaybe. But she might have just turned around and come back.” It looked as if I should go to Cold Flat Junction and talk to Gloria Spiker Calhoun again to try and see if she was telling the truth.
    â€œNow, Emma, we really should get back to you.”
    I frankly thought we were back to me.
    â€œThis Orphan card keeps coming up. This is the third time.”
    Actually, it was the fourth, but I wasn’t going to dwell on that. “Well, there are ten orphans that Miss Landis—that’s Miss Louise Landis—do you know her? She’s from Cold Flat Junction.”
    Mrs. Louderback pursed her lips, thinking. She was never one to toss out answers without thinking about them. “No, I don’t believe I do.”
    â€œAnyway, as a treat for them, she brought ten orphans to the Hotel Paradise for lunch.”
    â€œHow thoughtful.”
    I frowned. It had been my idea, actually. But not out of thoughtfulness. It was more like a bribe, the lunch, and I also threw in a performance of Medea, the Musical . “Those orphans weren’t much like these, though.” I had my chin cupped in my hands on the table, getting a different view of the cards for no reason. “They had terrible table manners.”
    â€œThat’s too bad. I expect your mother went to a lot of trouble for them.”
    My mother went to trouble? I was the one who nearly had to horse-whip Will and Mill into doing the performance. I said, poking the card, “Of course these Orphans aren’t real; they just stand for something.”
    â€œWhat might they?”
    I shrugged and shook my head. I was sitting back now and looking at the ceiling. I wondered if I was avoiding something. I thought of the Devereau house across the lake that in the fog seemed to float like a tall gray ship. I thought of the misty pond near the Belle Ruin, where the deer came almost like phantom deer to drink. I thought of the Girl. Then I said, “Sometimes I wonder, How can you tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not?”
    I didn’t expect Mrs. Louderback to come up with the answer—you know, the one that solves all problems, past, present, and future. But I certainly didn’t expect her to say,
    â€œMaybe you can’t.”

8
    I forgot my two-dollar contribution on the way out, which was probably why Mrs. Louderback’s housekeeper or whoever she was gave me an extra-stern look, although on her face it was hard to tell the difference from her other looks.
    Maybe my hand that was now feeling the dollar bills hadn’t wanted to let go because Mrs. Louderback hadn’t told me anything that made me feel better, and was there any other reason to pay a person?
    I kicked an empty Nehi can for a while down the road and then over to the curb when I saw a car coming. It was a buttercup yellow Chevy convertible, much bigger and fancier than Ree-Jane’s white one, and it was driven by Scarlett Bittinger. I liked her because she was so much competition for Ree-Jane, who, of course, hated her.
    Scarlett honked the horn and waved to me as she sped by. It was nice having someone her age treat me as if I was visible. Around her neck was a vivid green chiffon scarf that was raked by the wind, and as it sank from sight, I imagined Scarlett, in a night of wind and rain, on a dark road, and