Untimely Death by Elizabeth J. Duncan Read Free Book Online

local river. The natural light was good, and although she rarely brought work home, if she had some detailed stitching to do, it was in front of this window that she did it.
    The summer season at Jacobs Grand Hotel kept her busy, but in the downtime of winter, she supplemented her income by creating costumes for New York productions on a short-term contract basis. It was easy enough to catch the bus that picked up passengers at the village green and continued on, stopping at small towns along the way, all the way to the Port Authority Bus Terminal at Forty-Second Street. She loved days out in New York,the hustle of the city, the romance of the theater district, and the drive of the fashion district.
    She finished setting the table, and a few minutes later, as Rupert’s barking warned of an approaching vehicle, she lit a couple of candles. Footsteps crunched across the gravel, and she opened the door for Ray, letting in a cool blast of fresh spring evening air.
    After kissing her, he took off his coat and went to wash his hands in the kitchen sink.
    “Are you off duty now for the rest of the evening?” she asked over the sound of running water. He nodded. “Hungry?” He nodded again as he hung up the towel. “Like a glass of wine?”
    “That sounds good,” he replied.
    “Dinner should be ready in a few minutes.” She handed him a glass of white wine and sat beside him on the couch, tucking one leg under her as she turned toward him.
    “Tell me,” she said.
    “Well, the good news is that Lauren has regained consciousness and is breathing on her own, but they wouldn’t let me speak to her. She’s not quite out of the woods yet but headed in the right direction. It was very lucky you found her when you did. The doctor said even five or ten minutes later and the outcome would most likely have been very different.”
    “Do they know what she took?”
    “They did a tox screen but haven’t got the results back yet. I hope to know more when we’re able to talk to her.”
    He took a sip of wine.
    “Now it’s your turn to tell me,” he said. “You said you thought something didn’t seem quite right when you found Lauren. What did you mean by that?”
    “She seemed so limp and well, just out of it. I wondered if she’d taken something.”
    “A suicide attempt, you mean?”
    Charlotte nodded. “I had a cousin who tried to kill herself. My aunt found her passed out, and what she described looked a lot like Lauren.”
    She glanced at Rupert lying beside them and then bent over and gave the fur on his back a friendly rub.
    “But I wouldn’t have thought Lauren was the type to try to commit suicide. Of course, you can never really know what’s going on in someone’s mind, but she didn’t seem depressed or unhappy to me. Quite the opposite, in fact. She seemed very confident that she was on her way to bigger and better things.”
    “But suicide attempts aren’t always what they seem,” Ray said. “Sometimes people do it to attract attention or to send a message to someone. You know—‘If you break up with me, I’ll kill myself, and you’ll be sorry.’”
    Charlotte glanced up at him.
    “I offered to ride in the ambulance to the hospital with Lauren,” she remarked as she straightened up, “but the paramedic said only family can do that. It occurred to me that Lauren didn’t take anything with her, so I thought I’d go back to her room tonight and choose afew items that she’ll need while she’s in hospital. A bit of makeup, her own nightdress, that sort of thing.”
    “That’s a good idea,” said Ray. “I’m sure she’d appreciate your thoughtfulness. We can walk over together after dinner.”
    The oven timer dinged to let them know the chicken was done. Charlotte mashed the potatoes, and they worked together to plate the meal. Charlotte closed the curtains against the night while Ray set the plates on the table and Rupert kept a close eye on everything.
    Ray looked thoughtful as he piled