Haunting Refrain Read Online Free PDF Page B

you?”
    She looked up, startled to find Thomas Andrews staring down at her. Yes, she did mind, but she couldn’t say so to the overly handsome man. “Of course not. What are you doing here, Thomas? This doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”
    He gestured at the crowded tables and smiled. “How’s your photography business? Anything interesting in your life right now?” He brushed off the seat of the chair opposite her and sat. “I remembered your mentioning this place when we were in Business Law last fall. When you were too busy to go out with me.”
    Trust him to remember something like that, she thought. He had asked her out several times, but she had demurred, blaming it on the demands of her new studio. “Nothing new.” Unless you count a sudden descent into murder and the supernatural . “Still working, trying to get it off the ground.”
    He picked up the menu, a little distastefully, she thought. “Didn’t I see your name in the paper the other day? I didn’t know you had other talents.”
    I hate John Gerrard. “I don’t. It was a fluke. Just a dumb experiment that went wrong.” And she had thought no one would read it! Was there anyone who hadn’t?
    “It sounds interesting. I had no idea there was such a group in Greenville . How does it work?” He leaned forward, resting on his elbows, and folded his hands together.
    She gave him the barest possible explanation, searching desperately for a distraction. “Are you still taking night classes? Weren’t you working on a graduate degree?”
    “Yes. I should get my MBA in the spring. I’m considering starting my own firm. Maybe I’ll need some photographs, for brochures and advertising, you know?”
      “Good luck.” She wouldn’t take the bait, didn’t want to give him an opening for further conversation. Had he come here to ask her out again? She hoped not. She couldn’t think why the obviously successful, immaculately dressed man would be interested in her. However unfairly, he reminded her of J. B., and she would never accept an invitation from him. She crossed her knife and fork over her half-eaten lunch and swallowed the last of her iced tea. “I have to get back. I have a client due soon.”
    “Goodbye, Kate. Good to see you again.”
    She left quickly. Where were the average guys? The ones she might like to spend time with? John Gerrard flashed into her mind, but she refused to allow the thought. Once more she considered calling about news of Kelly Landrum. In the end she couldn't do it. Anyway, she could always ask the police at tonight’s meeting. God in Heaven, how had she gotten to such a state?
    Pushing everything else from her mind, she returned to her work, but she ruined two sepia prints before she was able to concentrate on a portrait of a mother and child in Victorian dress. A shaft of light, artfully provided by Kate, lent a luminous quality to the mother's somewhat plain face. Kate was pleased with the results of the third print and her enthusiasm returned.
    The work was going so well she hated to quit and change clothes for the para group meeting, but since the police were going to be there, she wanted to look like a sober, responsible member of society and not some glue-sniffing new-age hippy.
    She locked the studio and pushed the button for the ancient freight elevator. Two paneled models had been installed to take patrons from the lobby to the theater on the third floor, but only the old freight elevator in the back of the building came to Kate's studio on the fourth floor.
    Stepping in, she thought about a morning some months ago when, with her camera, she had captured the figure of a sleeping drunk sprawled in the shadowed cage. She thought the stark portrait would be an interesting contrast to the beautiful people on her walls—a little reality to contrast with the illusions. The gritty black and white she’d chosen to print the photo in enhanced its desolate character. She was preparing to hang it when