Not a Chance in Helen Read Online Free PDF Page B

you’re leaving already? Please, don’t tell me you’re going over to Eleanora’s to find out what she’s done now.”
    “Aren’t you even the least bit curious?”
    “Absolutely not,” her friend said, her tone laced with bitterness. “No, I’m finished with worrying about Eleanora. As far as I’m concerned, she’s out of my life for good.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that,” Helen admitted, “and I can’t say I blame you. You did try to extend the olive branch, didn’t you? She was the one who wouldn’t leave the past alone.”
    Jean didn’t respond. She toyed with her cup of coffee, though she made no move to drink it.
    “We’ll talk soon,” Helen said and left the booth, making her way through the aisles between the tables and exiting the diner in a jingle of bells.
    The night air felt good against her face, the faint breeze from the river tugging gently at her hair, its crispness quickening her pace.
    The Duncan house was but a couple blocks away, though it seemed a world apart in some respects. Tidy one-story houses with clapboard façades and tiny yards followed one after another with hardly a picnic table’s width between. Until the street curved away, bending past the harbor where a dozen or so small boats were docked, and the homes seemed overgrown suddenly and an acre apart at least.
    There were no picket fences here, no yapping dogs or front lawns filled with bicycles and children’s toys. Not a single dented Chevy or compact car sat parked upon the gravel-strewn road.
    Though River Bend was home to young and old, rich and poor, Helen knew that most of its citizens had surpassed middle age years ago. Few were without some sort of nest egg to live on. But the residents of Harbor Drive had more than IRAs and monthly pensions to draw from. Like Eleanora Duncan, those who lived on this street of French colonials and Victorians had deep pockets that only time and trust funds could so amply fill.
    Helen spotted Biddle’s car up ahead, beneath the towering oak she’d seen Eleanora leaning against just that morning.
    She hurried up the sidewalk to the path that led directly to the whitewashed Victorian with its encircling porch, noting that the windows facing front were all aglow.
    Her breaths grew noisy as she climbed the steps and crossed to the door. The planked boards beneath her feet creaked and groaned with every stride.
    She paused to inhale deeply once and then twice, trying hard to slow her racing heart.
    What if Eleanora was hurt, she thought as she picked up the brass knocker and thumped it several times. What if she’d fallen and couldn’t get up? Heaven knew, with all those stairs leading up three floors, it very well could have happened. This house was too big for Eleanora to live in alone. Helen had discussed the very subject with her a time or two, but Eleanora didn’t want to move. “It’s my home,” she’d insisted. “Where else would I go?” At which point, Helen hadn’t had the heart to say another word.
    The door came open suddenly, and Helen stood nose to nose with Frank Biddle.
    His face fell at the sight of her. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, but, when she frowned at him, he added, “I thought it might be Doc Melville. I phoned him as soon as I saw.”
    “Saw what?” Helen tried to peer over his shoulder, but all she could make out was the empty foyer. Although she did hear a noise. Was that someone crying?
    She pushed past him. “For goodness’ sake, Sheriff, where’s Eleanora? Is that her sobbing? What in God’s name is going on?”
    She followed the sounds, ignoring Biddle’s attempts to thwart her progress.
    Crossing the dining room and rounding the Chippendale table and chairs, she pushed through a swinging door that opened into the kitchen.
    “Ma’am, please stay back.” Biddle tried to get her to stop for the umpteenth time, but Helen didn’t listen. If Eleanora needed help—and obviously she did, or the sheriff wouldn’t have telephoned Doc