Mirror Image by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online

you, " she began apologetically.
    "Not at all. I'm glad you called." But he could hear in her voice that something had happened, and he only hoped that nothing had happened to her father. "Is something wrong? " he asked very gently.
    He knew, himself, only too well how swiftly tragedy can strike, and he sounded incredibly kind as he asked her, and she didn't know how to answer.
    She had to fight back tears as she thought of what Victoria had done this time. She tried not to think of the disgrace to their father if Victoria had in fact been arrested, and she wanted to scream with mortification and fear every time she thought of her sister being held at the Fifth Precinct.
    "I .. . I'm afraid .. . I need your help, Mr. Dawson .
    and your absolute discretion." She sounded so worried and he couldn't even begin to imagine what had happened. "I'm afraid my sister ... I .. . could you possibly come here to see me? "
    "Now? " He had come out of a meeting to speak to her, and he couldn't imagine what needed his immediate attention. "Is it urgent? "
    "Very, " she said, sounding desperate, and he glanced at his watch as he heard her.
    "Shall I come at once? " She nodded, as tears stung her eyes, momentarily unable to answer, and when she spoke again, he could hear that she was crying. "I'm terribly sorry .. . I need your help ..
    . Victoria has done something terribly foolish." All he could think of was that she had eloped. She couldn't be injured, or her sister would be calling a doctor and not an attorney. It was impossible to imagine what had happened. But he took a cab straight to her front door and was there less than fifteen minutes later.
    Petrie let him in, and Olivia was waiting for him, pacing in the downstairs salon. Bertie was occupied elsewhere in the house, and fortunately hadn't heard him.
    And the moment he walked in, she saw those eyes again, the eyes that had so mesmerized her the first time she met him.
    "Thank you for coming so quickly, " she said, and it was easy to see how distraught she was, as she picked up her hat and put it on quickly, and grabbed her handbag. "We must leave immediately."
    "But what's happened? Where is your sister, Miss Henderson? Has she run away? " He was baffled by the mysteries surrounding them, and anxious to do what he could, but he had no idea what she wanted of him.
    For an instant, Olivia stood to her full height and looked up at him, her eyes filled with embarrassment and terror. She was a capable girl, but this was by far the most shocking experience of her sister's career, and she was beside herself over not wanting anyone else to know it.
    Surely they wouldn't understand how spirited she was, or how innocent some of her pranks were. And this was one instance where Olivia's trading places with her would solve nothing. For the first time in her life, she felt entirely helpless.
    "She's at the Fifth Precinct, Mr. Dawson, " Olivia said in a Low grief-stricken tone. "They just called me. They are holding her there, and they won't arrest her, if we come quickly." Unless of course Victoria talked them into it, and they arrested her before she and Charles could get there.
    "Good heavens." He actually did look surprised this time, as he followed her out the front door, and down the front steps, and then hurried to hail a taxi. He helped Olivia into it, in her quiet gray work dress that she'd been wearing since that morning. She'd put on a very fashionable black hat with it, and realized that Victoria had worn the identical hat when she'd left that morning. Even when they didn't plan to wear the same things, they almost always did, just as she had done now. But she wasn't thinking about their hats, as she tried to explain to Charles Dawson what she thought must have happened.
    "She's totally enamored with this stupid National American Women's Suffrage Association, and the people who run it." She told him all their names, explained about the demonstration in Washington five months before, and