You belong to me by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online Page B

body on the pavement, the elegant suit marked with tire tracks, made Hilda feel faint, but she recovered enough to speak to the reporter. Then she turned and with great difficulty made her way home to her apartment Once inside she made tea and, hands shaking, sipped it slowly.
    "That poor girl," she kept murmuring, as she relived the incident over and over again.
    Finally she felt she had the strength to call the police station. The desk sergeant who answered was one she had spoken to several times in the past, usually when she reported panhandlers approaching pedestrians on Third Avenue. He listened to her story patiently.
    "Hilda, we know what you think, but you're mistaken," he said soothingly. "We already talked to a lot of the people who were on that corner when the accident happened. The press of the crowd when the light turned green caused Mrs. Wells to lose her balance, that's all."
    "The pressure of a hand on her back deliberately pushing her forward caused her to fall," Hilda snapped. "He grabbed the manila envelope she was carrying. I'm exhausted and going to bed now, but leave word for Captain Shea. I'll be in to see him the minute he gets in tomorrow morning. Eight o'clock sharp."
    She hung up indignantly. It was only five o'clock, but she needed to go to bed. She felt a tightness in her chest that only a nitroglycerin tablet under her tongue and some bed rest would ease.
    A few minutes later she was dressed in her warm nightgown, her head propped up on the thick pillow that aided her breathing. The darting headache that for a few minutes always accompanied the pill began to subside. The chest pain was fading.
    Hilda sighed with relief. A good night's rest and she would go to the police station to give Captain Shea an earful and register a complaint about that boneheaded sergeant. Then she would insist on sitting down with the police artist and describing the man who had pushed that woman. Vile thing, she thought, remembering his face. The worst kind-well dressed; classy-looking; the type of person you would think you could trust. How was that poor girl doing? she wondered. Maybe it would be on the news.
    She reached for the remote control and turned on the television just in time to see and hear herself on camera as the witness who claimed to have seen a man push Carolyn Wells in front of the van.
    Hilda's emotions were decidedly mixed. She felt an undeniable thrill at being a celebrity, but there was also a sense of annoyance at the comment the broadcaster had made, which clearly suggested she was wrong. Then that lunkhead sergeant had treated her like she was a child. Her final thought as she began to doze off was that in the morning she'd stir them all up. Wait and see. Sleep overcame her just as she began to say a Hail Mary for the gravely injured Carolyn Wells.
    16
    When Susan left Nedda, she walked home through the twilight to her apartment on Downing Street. The penetrating chill of the early morning, relieved temporarily by the warmth of the afternoon sun, had returned.
    She thrust her hands into the generous pockets of her sack-style jacket and picked up her pace. The weather brought to mind a long-forgotten line from Little Women. One of the sisters-she couldn't remember whether it was Beth or Amy-said that November was a disagreeable month, and Jo agreed, commenting that that was why she was born in it.
    Me too, Susan thought. My birthday is November twenty-fourth. The Thanksgiving baby, they used to call me. Sure. And this year I'm a thirty-three-year-old baby. Thanksgiving and birthdays used to be fun, she mused. At least this year I won't have to jog between two dinners, like someone stealing from one enemy camp to another. Thank God this year Dad and Binky are going to St. Martin.
    Of course, my domestic problem is small potatoes when compared with the way Jane Clausen is living, she thought, as she reached her street and turned west.
    After they had acknowledged that "Karen" was not going to keep