Sister Angel Read Online Free PDF Page B

Wanda. “There’s nothing you have to do here all that fast.”
    “I can’t.”
    Gretchen turned to Constance. “You aren’t even trying to talk reason to her!”
    Call, damn you, Constance thought at Vanessa in Philadelphia. “When do you expect Amos and Angel tonight?”
    “Around nine-thirty. I asked him if he would drop in for just a few minutes. Maybe I won’t need a pill if he talks to me soon before I go to bed.”
    When dinner was ready, they all poked at their food without real interest. The call for Constance came midway through the meal.
    When she returned to the dining room, Wanda was re garding Charlie. “That’s exactly how Vernon acted,” she said. “That same kind of absent look, pale, taut…”
    Charlie stood up, stalked from the room, with Constance right behind him.
    She nearly pushed him into the television room and closed the door. It was almost nine-thirty.
    “I know who it is,” Charlie said grimly. “She’s scared to death. She needs help desperately.”
    “I know she does. There’s no time now, Charlie. Please trust me. Go along with me for the next hour. Whatever you start to think, please trust me!”
    “If you do anything to hurt her…”
    “You know I won’t hurt her.”
    He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. “What are you up to? Who called?”
    “I can’t tell you. You’re too open to her.”
    “We shouldn’t have come here. We can leave now, forget all this. Maybe that’s what we should do, just get the hell out of here.”
    “We can’t. You can’t. It’s too late for that.” She looked at her watch. “It’s time. He’ll go upstairs with Wanda. Angel is going to have dessert with us. Let’s go back now. And, Charlie, don’t interfere. Promise!”
    He shook his head. “I can’t promise that.”
    “All right. But you do trust me, you know. You can’t stop trusting me now.”
    Almost all day, she had been with him, gone briefly now and again, but then back even stronger—whispering in his ear, sitting on his lap, lying with him, moving with him, caressing him with her warm hands that were touches of elec tricity. When he paused at the dining room door, she was seated at the table with cake before her, her fork halted in midair. She looked directly at him. He saw her across the room and he felt her in his arms, her warm breath on his neck, her laughter in his ear. Her incredible violet eyes, he thought, unable to look away until she lowered her gaze. Then he moved, resumed his seat, stared at her. Wanda had left.
    “Good evening, Angel,” Constance said briskly. “It’s time that we all began telling the truth around here, don’t you think? First of all, Charlie is a detective. He used to work for the police in New York; now he’s freelance.”
    He started to rise, relaxed again. She didn’t care. In his mind, he was holding her, the way he had held her when the cat moved, hard, tightly, securely, with her face pressed against him.
    Gretchen was regarding Constance as if she had gone mad.
    “We were hired,” Constance went on, very businesslike, almost brusque in her speech, “to investigate Amos and his claim that there are ghosts in this house.”
    Charlie closed his eyes. Again it was all right. He moved in a slow waltz with her, both of them naked, warm against each other. If he looked at Constance, he would see an old, rather ugly woman, he knew. He did not want to see that. He kept his eyes closed and felt the lithe body against him.
    “I’m sure you know that what I’m telling you is true,” Constance said. “And this is true also. I’m a doctor, a psychologist.”
    There was a wave of hatred, loathing, terror. Charlie jerked his eyes wide open, grasped the table hard. The emotional wave was gathering momentum, hitting him like surges of power. Gretchen screamed and pushed herself away from the table, stumbled when she stood up, fell back into her chair. Charlie tried to yell, tried to call out Constance’s name, but he could