Deadly Pink Read Online Free PDF Page B

turned herself into...?
    I could have kicked myself for not having asked Ms. Bennett and Sybella what the point of this game was. I pointed to the dolphins and asked, “Emily?”
    The gondolier looked confused, then gave an expression as though my nose had suddenly broken off and was hanging on to my face by a string of snot. He smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand to indicate he had never heard anything so stupid in his life, and he repeated with exaggerated care, " DEL-FI-NI.”
    Okay. So not Emily.
    “Thanks all the same,” I said. " Grazie.” Which I think is Italian. Unless it's Spanish.
    Once more his fingers brushed my sleeve. By now he'd seen that talking to me was useless. He pointed to the tall red and white striped pole to which the gondola was tied. Another of those big sparkly butterflies had alighted on top. The gondolier made a gesture of cupping hands and indicated for me to try to catch the butterfly.
    Not wanting to miss something important, but still feeling both impatient and like a jerk, I did. For a brief moment, I felt the creature's wings flutter, tickling my palms. Then it turned cold and solid. Carefully, I unfurled my fingers, and found that the butterfly had turned into a gold coin.
    " Bene,” the gondolier congratulated me.
    I nodded my gratitude for his showing me how things worked here—since my attempt at Italian had apparently all but left him mute. Fortunately, my dress came with pockets, so I put my coin in one. Then I ran down the dock, across the lawn, and into the house through the French doors of the kitchen.
    “Emily?” I called.
    The house was as quiet and empty as on my first visit.
    I searched the ground floor even faster than I had the last time, not letting myself get distracted by wondering what was going on. Once I got back to the kitchen, I did check outside the window again, to make sure there wasn't a glitch in the program that made Emily visible on the lake only from that vantage point. The gondolier was alone, standing in his boat, patiently waiting to offer a ride and a song to whoever came by.
    Up the grand staircase to the second floor I went. There was a huge huge huge bathroom with two tubs, one an old-fashioned kind with claw feet, the other basically a shallow sunken pool tiled with lapis lazuli. The bedroom had a balcony that overlooked the lake; a dresser with a marble top and a tiltable mirror; and a canopy bed, complete with a small step stool to get up into it. The mood was little-girlish rather than bed-and-breakfast-ish, and when I saw the white furry area rug, I told myself, “Hmph!” Disgruntled by all this frilliness, I permitted myself the unkind thought, Little girls like unicorns. I wonder if that’s unicorn fur.
    I opened a door and found a walk-in closet at least as big as our living room. There were all sorts of princess gowns, Southern-belle gowns, Renaissance gowns. Who could have guessed that Emily, who normally slouched around in jeans and hoodies, had a heart that yearned for dress-up?
    But there was no sign of her here, so I ran back downstairs.
    I threw open the French doors that took me back out to the porch, and there she was, in the garden.
    “Emily!” I called, to keep her from wandering off before I got to her.
    She heard me—I caught the quick glance in my direction—but then she looked away.
    What?
    I'd been frantic to find her, was delighted to succeed, and now she was ignoring me?
    Like all the fear I'd been feeling, all the turmoil, all the worry about what had happened and the bigger worry about how was I supposed to help—like all that was nothing?
    I suppose, I told myself with a little bit of self-pity and a good deal of bitterness, I suppose I should consider myself lucky she's only ignoring me and that she didn’t start running away from me even as her name left my lips.
    The possibility that she might not want to see me caused me to slow down, to reevaluate. I saw that she had changed out of the white