Reprisal Read Online Free PDF Page A

special."
    "Meaning you, as not being special." Charis didn't look up from what she was doing--not being rude, just doing two things at once. When they started rooming together, first of the summer session--and Charis had come up to Rebecca at registration, and talked with her, and then out of the blue had asked if they could room together--Rebecca had thought she was rude when she kept working like that while they were talking, having a conversation. But it was just something she did ... something most people couldn't do, probably.
    "--Absolutely meaning me as not being special. Charis, she loves me, I know she loves me, but there's this "And what is my plump, not very pretty, not terribly intelligent, and slightly disappointing little daughter up to now?
    Probably not much."--And my dad just didn't think that way about me. I could
    ..."
    "Relax?"
    "Exactly. I could relax with him, Charis. And now I don't have that, and I'll never have that again, and it--yes, it does scare me. You bet." She looked through the closet again. Nothing that did anything for her. And she kept buying stuff ... it was ridiculous. "You can relax with me, Rebecca."
    "Not if you were my mother instead of my roommate, I couldn't. You're another one of those ... beautiful achievers. It's just not fair."
    "I'm not that at all, Rebecca.--And you are intelligent and attractive."
    "Oh, sure." Rebecca closed the closet door.
    "And as far as "fair" goes, I've heard of that rare bird." Charis closed her notebook. "--But I've never seen it."
    "Well, my father made up for a lot of that unfairness, for me. He was really a wonderful man--I loved him, and you would have liked him, Charis. People liked my dad; he was very good."
    "Tell you what I think." Charis stood, and gathered her books. "--I've got Engletree's class, and I have to stop at the library after that. But then we can meet at the Griddle for lunch, if you want to."
    "Okay."
    "--Tell you what I think, Rebecca. I think your dad's goodness lives on in you
    ... and you should be proud of that, and not take advantage of his death to feel sorry for yourself." She slid her books into her old black bookbag, and touched Rebecca's cheek as she walked out of the room. Rebecca heard her talking to Grace Marcus for a moment, in the hall.
    "I'm not satisfied," Joanna said, sat back and waited. He'd given her an uncomfortable ladder-back chair in a small sunny office--Asconsett Island's usual white-painted pine paneling ... its usual big double-paned windows looking out to sea. The chief constable's office was second-floor back; his secretary's and deputies' desks below. Cells, she supposed, were in the building's basement.
    "Well," the chief said, "--here's the thing." His "here" was Asconsett's down-east he-ah. "Here's the thing, Mrs. Reed--Professor."
    ""Mrs. Reed" is fine."

    "Okay. Well, I'm going to be very direct with you. The Coast Guard is satisfied--the commander over at Post Port is satisfied, Commander Anderson.
    The state police are satisfied--you call in and ask them. ... And what counts out here, is that I'm satisfied." Carl Early sat back in what seemed to be a much more comfortable chair, and looked at her across a gray steel desk.
    The chief constable was almost startlingly handsome, an elderly movie star with elegant cheekbones, parchment skin, perfectly blue eyes--eyes a little bored, uninterested--and wonderful hair, thick snow, combed straight back.
    Very handsome, and had been tall and slender when he'd stood to greet her.
    Neatly dressed as well, in a light-blue summer sharkskin suit.
    Joanna supposed the chief's wife must always have been uneasy about his off-island trips on business ... duty trips that took him away from her to Boston, Providence, Portland. Mrs. Early must have had troubled visions of beautiful Carl in his hotel room with some woman he'd only just met. Just met that afternoon. ...
    "--I'm the senior law enforcement officer for seventeen islands along the coast, Professor