Charlotte Boyett-Compo- Windspectre Read Online Free PDF Page A

something deadly?
    She tested the way she felt like someone would poke at a sore tooth.
    She didn't feel queasy, just very tired. She didn't hurt anywhere although the puncture wounds on her neck were tender to the touch. Her head didn't ache, but her eyes seemed very sensitive to the slit of morning light coming in from between the garish draperies. She wasn't weak, wasn't lightheaded—just tired.
    Backing up, she entered the bathroom again and quickly swept her travel bag from the vanity and stuffed her hair dryer, brush and comb inside. She reached to the shelf in the bathtub to retrieve her toothbrush, paste and razor and added them to the travel bag, continuously turning her gaze to the opened doorway to watch the threshold as she worked. Zipping the bag closed, she retraced her steps to the doorway and once more peered cautiously at the floor surrounding the bed. She would have to slip between the two beds to get her overnight bag. The thought made her tremble. What if the thing that had taken a bite out of her was under one of those beds and lying in wait for her?
    Her gaze fell to her shoes again. She really needed her feet protected and she would need the shoes to drive.
    She whined, her fears having escalated to such a point she was sure the thing that had attacked her was inside one of those shoes. Clutching the travel bag to her chest with one hand, she ran the other over her lips, surprised to feel sweat beneath her palm.
    Did she have a fever? Was the poison galloping through her system, heading for her heart to stop its beat? To her lungs to cease their ability to draw in air? To her brain to shut down all bodily functions at once?
    Fear permeated every pore in Cathleen's body and dried up the saliva in her mouth. She couldn't swallow past the lump in her throat anyway. Standing there feeling as though something unseen was crawling all over her, she was beginning to think she'd start screaming and be unable to stop.
    "Get yourself together!" she hissed.
    The longer she stared at her shoes, the more convinced she was something was hiding there. One way or another, she had to know. Standing there frustrated with her dread building in increments was solving nothing.
    She glanced at the open closet. Cheap wire hangers hung there and if she could unbend two or three and twist them together, she would have something to poke at the shoes. Putting the travel bag on the vanity, she eased over to unhook a trio of the hangers and began unbending the spiraled wire on the neck of the hanger, straightening each one as best she could before twisting the three together to make a flimsy, crooked prod of sorts.
    It took her two tries to snare the shoe that was right side up with the hook of her prod. She managed to lift the shoe, shake it then drop it, turning it over in case something lurked inside. Satisfied nothing did, she pulled it toward her, stopped, then thrust the prod down into the toe. When nothing scurried or slithered out, she breathed a sigh of relief, dragging the shoe to her. Just to be on the safe side, she repeatedly poked the wire into the shoe several times. Feeling nothing, she bent down and picked it up, her heart in her throat as she gave it a vigorous shake.
    Though relieved the shoe appeared empty, she nevertheless looked down into it before dropping it to the floor and slipping her cold foot inside. Even then she thought she could feel something wriggling over her instep though that part of her foot wasn't even in the shoe to begin with.
    Stabbing the prod at the other shoe, turning it over, she waited to see if something came out before rocking it back and forth on the floor then running the wire shaft into the toe. She could feel nothing there and nothing came running up the wire to attach itself to her face and send eggs down her gullet. After being just as careful—if not more so—with that shoe as she'd been with the first, she finally had it on her foot, though she was still reluctant to get