Murder on Waverly Place Read Online Free PDF

“orphaned” very long ago. He was tall and gangly and rather plain, although his manners were just fine as he looked around the room, greeting everyone he knew by name and offering his excuses for being late.
    “A terrible tangle at Madison Square,” he was saying. “A wagon overturned and no one could move an inch down Fifth Avenue for an hour! I finally gave up and walked the rest of the way. Hello, do we have some newcomers today?”
    Mrs. Burke hastened to make the necessary introductions.
    “Pleased to meet you,” he told both Sarah and her mother. “I know Madame can help you. She’s helped me more than I can ever tell you,” he added earnestly.
    Sarah wasn’t sure how to reply to that and neither was her mother, so they simply smiled politely.
    Cunningham walked over to where Mr. Sharpe stood and began inquiring after the older man’s health. Sharpe had only a moment to reply before something caught everyone’s attention, and they all fell expectantly silent. Afterward, Sarah could not remember hearing anything, but she must have. Something had warned them all and compelled them to look up just in time to see a figure clad entirely in black step through the open doorway. In an instant, they were all on their feet.
    Sarah needed no one to tell her this was Madame Serafina, and she was nothing like Sarah had imagined. First of all, she was very young, hardly more than twenty if Sarah was any judge. She was also strikingly attractive. Not conventionally beautiful or merely pretty, but her large, dark eyes shone with an intensity that was almost magnetic. Her fair, flawless skin seemed to glow, and she wore her glossy dark hair pulled severely back into a chignon, a style that truly flattered few women but which actually accentuated her marvelous eyes.
    “Good morning,” she said. Her voice was as soft and sweet as Sarah had expected from one so young.
    “Madame,” Cunningham exclaimed, coming toward her eagerly. “I’m so glad to see you.” He looked more than glad, and for an instant, Sarah thought he might take her in his arms, but he stopped just short and took her offered hand instead.
    “I’m glad to see you, too, Mr. Cunningham,” she said, sounding not even a tiny bit more than politely pleased. Her gaze touched him only for a moment before moving back to Sarah and her mother. “You must be Mrs. Decker,” she said.
    “Yes,” Mrs. Decker said in a feathery voice Sarah hardly recognized. The determined Mrs. Felix Decker had vanished once again in the face of the amazing Madame Serafina.
    Madame reached out and took both of Mrs. Decker’s hands in hers, then closed her eyes for a few long seconds. “I sense pain,” she said without opening her eyes. “Great pain. You have suffered a terrible loss. Someone very close to you. Someone who . . . A child.”
    Mrs. Decker gasped and snatched her hands away.
    Madame Serafina opened her eyes and said, “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
    “No, no,” Mrs. Decker assured her, clutching her hands to her breast. “It’s just . . . I wasn’t expecting . . .”
    “I know, I know,” Madame soothed, then turned her implacable gaze on Sarah. “I am so pleased you brought your daughter with you today.” She smiled mysteriously, to Sarah’s great relief. Sarah thought she heard Mrs. Burke sigh with relief of her own. “That will make us seven at the table. A lucky number.” She continued to stare at Sarah for a long moment, until Sarah began to feel uncomfortable. Then she said, “I sense that you don’t believe in the power of the spirits.”
    Someone made a small sound of protest, probably Mrs. Burke, but Sarah refused to contradict her. “I’m skeptical,” she admitted.
    Madame nodded knowingly. “But you came because your mother asked you,” she guessed, although she didn’t sound the least bit unsure about her assumption.
    “Will her presence hinder you in any way?” Mr. Sharpe asked with some