The Second Silence by Eileen Goudge Read Free Book Online Page A

him of her grandmother’s decision to refuse further treatment. He wouldn’t understand … and probably wouldn’t care.
    Several minutes later another waiter, a sallow-faced middle-aged man with an elaborate comb-over, appeared to take their orders. As Noelle peered at the menu in the dim light, its spidery print swam before her. She blinked, struggling to bring it into focus. All at once she felt light-headed, tipsy almost. A wave of panic, a knee-jerk reaction from the years when a night out had been little more than an excuse to get drunk, swept over her.
    ‘Darling, are you all right?’ Robert’s face loomed close.
    ‘Right as rain.’ One of Nana’s favorite expressions, which struck her as silly all of a sudden. What was right about rain? It was cold and spoiled everything; it made her hair frizz. She began to giggle uncontrollably, clapping a hand over her mouth.
    Robert eyed her with the same patient, long-suffering expression she remembered from the old days, but there was something different about it now, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Absently she rubbed her arm, recalling his steely grip on her elbow, the thousand and one times he’d had to steer her out of a restaurant or party, all the while smiling and chatting as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
    ‘Are you sure? You look pale,’ he said.
    The room reeled. She had to clutch hold of the table to keep from tipping out of her chair. ‘It must be something I ate.’ But lunch was hours ago, and she hadn’t had a bite since.
    ‘Either that, or a bug you picked up. Half my crew is out sick with the flu.’ He covered her hand with his, and this time she didn’t pull away. The room was revolving slowly, dreamily, like a carousel. ‘Come on, I’ll take you home. Can you make it to the car?’
    ‘I—I think so.’ But when she stood up, the floor rocked beneath her, and she immediately plopped back down again. She leaned over and whispered fiercely, ‘Robert, what’s wrong? What’s happening to me?’
    ‘You’ll be fine. We’ve got to get you home, that’s all.’
    She nodded, her head bobbing like a balloon on the end of a string. It dawned on her that she’d heard those words before. It was exactly what Robert used to say when she was too drunk to manage on her own. Yet she hadn’t touched a drop.
    He slipped something in my drink. He must have.
    In some small, still corner of her mind an alarm bell was going off. She opened her mouth to call for help, but it was too late. The room appeared to be closing in on her, as if she were viewing it through a rapidly narrowing lens. The light was fading as well, leaving only a velvety grayness pricked with starry points of light. The last thing Noelle saw, as she slipped from her chair onto the floor, was the all-too-familiar look of disgust on the middle-aged waiter’s sallow, peering face.

CHAPTER 2
    ‘MARY, WE’VE GOT THE CHANNEL TWO VAN pulling up front, CNN at the door, and a lady with her head in the sink screaming that her scalp is on fire.’
    The cell phone sizzled with static, Brittany’s voice fading in and out like the distant chirping of some frantic bird. Mary indulged in a moment’s worth of panic. But when she spoke, her voice was calm. ‘Can you hold them off, Brit? Five minutes, that’s all I ask. I’m at Park and Fifty-ninth, and it looks like the traffic is finally moving.’
    ‘Will do.’ Brittany’s cynical laugh broke free of the interference. ‘Hey, I just flashed on tomorrow’s Post. SOCIALITE SUES SALON . Talk about publicity!’
    ‘Bite your tongue.’ Mary clicked off and jammed the phone into her outsize Prada bag. Half a block ahead the traffic light flashed to red. Leaning forward, she shouted over the radio tuned to the Yankees game, ‘Driver, let me off at the corner. I’ll walk from here.’
    Run was more like it, but wasn’t that the story of her life? The salon was at Madison and Sixty-first—one long block and two short