Festival of Deaths (44 page)
Read Festival of Deaths Online
Authors: Jane Haddam
“What was?”
“That she was married to the psychologist. That her husband—”
“Yes,” Caroline interrupted hastily. “Yes, I see. Well, it was four years ago, for goodness’ sake. There’s no reason it should have stuck in your mind. You weren’t working here then.”
“I was in high school then.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t expect someone in high school to pay much attention to the papers, or even to the six o’clock news. I was just wondering, you know, about Alyssa. About anything she might have said.”
“I really don’t know what you mean, Miss Hazzard. Your sister didn’t say anything in particular. Hello. How are you. Would you like one of these cookies. That kind of thing.”
“She didn’t say anything about my stepmother?”
“No.”
“Or about my father?”
“Oh, no.”
“Or about
me
?”
“She asked me if you were in your office when she first arrived, Miss Hazzard. I’m afraid I don’t quite understand—”
“No, no,” Caroline said, talking too fast again. “Of course you don’t. Why should you? I’m sorry, Sandy. Would you pack up for me, the way you offered to? And as soon as that’s done, we can both go home. You’ll probably be glad to get away from this place.”
“I won’t mind.”
“No, no, of course you won’t. Of course you won’t. Here, let me get the compass for you, I had it to work on the ell plans with, I lost my regular one this morning—oh,
damn.
”
“Miss Hazzard?”
“Never mind.” Caroline had dropped the compass on the floor. She picked it up and put it back on her desk. She was trying to avoid looking at her shoe, which had a stripe of white leather across the toe. The stripe of white leather was now marred by a splotch of black, where the point of the oversize pencil the compass held had hit it.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sandy asked. “Could I get you something? Maybe you want one of your tranquilizers?”
One
of her tranquilizers? How did Sandy know she took more than one kind of tranquilizer? And who
else
knew? God, this was really awful. This was a disaster. She was losing it completely. What did they call it in Group? That feeling you get that you’re more stoned on your own than any dope could make you.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Caroline said. She edged around the side of her desk and then around the chair Sandy was sitting in, looking at the ceiling, looking at the floor, looking at nothing. “I just have to go to the bathroom again. I’ll be right back.”
“Are you sure there isn’t anything I can get you?”
“Of course I’m sure, Sandy. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right back.”
Caroline was at the door to the hall now. She whirled around and plunged out into it, into the dark, and as she did, it occurred to her that it was a metaphor.
She was always plunging out into the dark.
She was always falling into the abyss.
It would be easy enough to blame it on Alyssa and Alyssa’s taste for the sensational, but Alyssa was just as much a victim as Caroline was.
They were both victims of Jacqueline Isherwood Hazzard.
And of their father.
There was a window open in the ladies’ room, blowing cold polluted air in from the streets of Philadelphia.
Caroline had never been as glad of the smell of carbon monoxide in her life.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1994 by Orania Papazoglou
cover design by Heather Kern
ISBN 978-1-4532-9302-7
This 2013 edition distributed by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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