Voice Out of Darkness by Ursula Curtiss Read Free Book Online Page A

will,” said Katy. “Come as early as you can, Michael.” Michael said he would and then the connection was broken and Katy was left, queerly comforted, in the close little booth in the lobby.
     
    In New York, in a restaurant near Forty-third and Madison, Lieutenant Hooper, eyes direct and thoughtful, said, “I don’t like it, Mr. Blythe, I don’t like it a bit. It’s turning ugly. Someone’s getting daring. It’s got to stop, or it’s going to end in a lot more trouble than a few anonymous letters.”
     
    “It’s so nice to see you, Katy,” Cassie said, in the Inn in Fenwick. She had refused a cocktail; she was meeting Jeremy shortly and they’d have drinks and dinner. She wore an incredibly fitted black coat and a scarf of pale smoky furs, but she looked, Katy thought, essentially the same. There was still the air of immaculate serenity, the charming lift of the dark delicate brows. Polished black-brown hair in a dipping ruffle across her forehead and curling away from the white, beautifully articulated cheekbones; odd, soft, three-cornered blue eyes with the faintest blur of shadow beneath them, as though she had been ill.
    “Flu,” Cassie said, laughing. “Quite unglamorous, but awfully uncomfortable. Everybody’s had it—you’d better watch out yourself. You look wonderful, but then I always did wish I had your eyes. Mother says you’re on vacation.”
    “Yes,” Katy said. She twirled the stem of her martini—left hand, so that Michael’s ring wouldn’t show. “Cassie, someone—not I—ordered flowers for Monica’s grave today.”
    Small, horrified silence. Cassie played with her green kid gloves. She said hesitantly, “What an odd thing to do. Did you find out who—?”
    “No,” said Katy. “Cassie, you remember that day at the pond.”
    Cassie said slowly, “Yes,” and frowned and gave Katy a you-know-what-we-agreed look.
    “You were there,” Katy said, deliberately trying to make it come back. The icy air, the darkling light, the tangled lacings of white where their skates had cut. “Do you remember—it was awfully still that day. I thought I heard someone up at the other end of the pond. Twigs, branches moving—did you?”
    Cassie looked at the tablecloth. She said, “No—but I was down by the channel. Katy, why are you going over it like this? You couldn’t have helped what happened. We tried.”
    “Of course,” Katy said. She reached for a cigarette and lighted it and blew a careless smoke ring that sped away and broke and made another tinier ring at its base.
    “But just—for the record. You remember what Monica said.”
    Cassie lifted blue eyes. “Yes. But I knew, I told you—”
    “Did you ever tell anyone about that, Cassie?” said Katy steadily. Her own voice sounded deafening in her ears. A waiter went by and Cassie said suddenly, “I’ve changed my mind. Waiter, could you bring me an old-fashioned?”
    She looked back at Katy. She said gently, “Why should I have, Katy? I didn’t believe it, even then. Even though Monica was between us, so I really couldn’t have seen.”
    Oh, God.
    “It doesn’t really matter now,” said Katy. “But—don’t you remember, Cassie? You were nearest the channel, and I remember your saying something to Monica about going through. I came skating down from the other end of the pond—”
    The old-fashioned arrived. Cassie lifted it and drank and put her glass down and went on looking at Katy. Katy said abruptly, “I reached for Monica’s arm because the ice looked very watery, as though it might be going to bend. I—tried to catch her arm, but she got away. Then, later on, Monica said—well, you heard her, she said I’d pushed her.”
    The wide, very blue eyes were on her face again. Cassie raised her drink and put it down without touching it. She said gently, cajolingly, “Darling, let’s face it. Monica was a thoroughly detestable child. But you didn’t—did you, Katy?”
     
    Katy dreamed that night. Of