A Bullet for Cinderella Read Online Free PDF

hasty hand. I went over all my things and saw more and more evidence of quick, careless search. There was nothing for anyone to find. I had written down nothing about the elusive Cindy.
    It did not seem probable that the maid or the woman who had rented me the room had done this. Nor did it seem probable that it had occurred on the previous day while I was out. I checked the door. I distinctly remembered locking it. It was unlocked. That meant someone had come in while I had slept. Fortunately, from long habit, I had put my wallet inside the pillowcase. My money was safe. Some cool morning air came through the door, chilling my face and chest, and I realized I was sweating lightly. I remembered how Fitz could move so quietly at night. I did not like the thought of his being in the room, being able to unlock the door. I did not see how it could have been anyone else. I wondered how he had found the motel so easily. I had given the address to no one. Yet it could not have taken too long on the phone. Maybe an hour or an hour and a half to find where I was registered. It would take patience. But Fitzmartin had waited over a year.
    I had breakfast, looked up an address and drove off to see the girl of the cracked, treasured picture—the girlwho, unknown to herself, had eased great loneliness, and strengthened frail courage.
    Dr. Buck Stamm was a veterinary. His home and place of business was just east of town, a pleasant old frame house with the animal hospital close by. Dogs made a vast clamor when I drove up. They were in individual runways beside the kennels. There were horses in a corral beyond the house.
    Dr. Stamm came out into the waiting-room when the bell on the door rang. He was an enormous man with bushy red hair that was turning gray. He had a heavy baritone voice and an impressive frown.
    “We’re not open around here yet unless it’s an emergency, young man.”
    “No emergency. I wanted to see your daughter for a minute.”
    “What about?”
    “It’s a personal matter. I was a friend of Timmy Warden.”
    He did not look pleased. “I guess I can’t stop you from seeing her. She’s at the house, wasting time over coffee. Go on up there. Tell her Al hasn’t showed up yet and I need help with the feeding. Tell her Butch died in the night and she’ll have to phone the Bronsons. Got that?”
    “I can remember it.”
    “And don’t keep her too long. I need help down here. Go around to the back door. She’s in the kitchen.”
    I went across the lawn to the house and up the back steps. It was a warm morning and the door was open. The screens weren’t on yet. The girl came to the back door. She was medium tall. Her hair was dark red, a red like you can see in old furniture made of cherry wood, oiled and polished so the sun glints fire streaks in it. She wore dungarees and a pale blue blouse. Her eyes were tilted gray, her mouth a bit heavy and quite wide. She had good golden skin tones instead of the blotched pasty white of most redheads. Her figure was lovely. She was twenty-six, or perhaps twenty-seven.
    There are many women in the world as attractive as Ruth Stamm. But the expression they wear for the worldbetrays them. Their faces are arrogant, or petulant, or sensuous. That is all right because their desirability makes up for it, and you know they will be good for a little time and when you have grown accustomed to the beauty, there will be just the arrogance or the petulance left.
    But Ruth wore her own face for the world—wore an expression of strength and humility and goodness. Should you become accustomed to her loveliness, there would still be all that left. This was a for-keeps girl. She couldn’t be any other way because all the usual poses and artifices were left out of her. This was a girl you could hurt, a girl who would demand and deserve utter loyalty.
    “I guess I’m staring,” I said.
    She smiled. “You certainly are.” She tried to make smile and words casual, but in those few