The Secret Life of Violet Grant Read Online Free PDF

and regular, the nose a trifle large, the hair short and dark as ink above his white collar. His forehead is high, overhanging the eyepiece, and in the soft yellow light Violet cannot detect a single line. “Ready.”
    She drops her gaze back to Christina’s watch.
    â€œAnd . . . go.”

Vivian
    A unt Violet. I had a great-aunt named Violet, an adulteress and murderess, about whom I’d never heard. A scientist. What sort of scientist?
    I regarded the valise on my table, and then turned to tell Doctor Paul the extraordinary news.
    Alas. Too late.
    Inexplicably, unfathomably, he lay upon my sofa, in the hollow left by Sally’s debauched corpse an hour or two earlier, so profoundly asleep I was tempted to hold my compact mirror to his mouth and check for signs of life.
    Hands to hips. “Well. There’s courtship for you.”
    But then a tiny steel ball bearing of sentiment rolled downward through the chambers of my heart. Poor dear Doctor Paul. One arm crossed atop his chest; the other dangled to the floor. His legs, far too long for the sweeping red Victorian curves of the sofa, propped themselves over the edge of the opposite armrest.
    I knelt next to him and touched the lock of hair that drooped in exhaustion to his forehead. Up close, I could see the tiny lines that fanned from the outer corners of his eyes. I bent my nose to his neck. Here, he smelled of salt instead of antiseptic, and perhaps a little long-forgottensoap, too, sweet and damp. I rubbed the tiny golden bristles of his nascent beard with my pinkie. He didn’t even flinch.
    â€œAren’t you just too much,” I whispered.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    AUNT JULIE blew into the apartment half an hour later, smelling of cigarettes and Max Factor pancake foundation. She flung her hat on the stand but kept her coat in place. When you maintained a figure like hers so far past its biblically ordained two score and ten, you lived in a perpetual state of Pleistocene chill.
    â€œWhere is this suitcase of yours?” she demanded, lighting a cigarette.
    â€œIt’s not mine. That’s the point. Drink?” I didn’t wait for an answer. The liquor filled a cabinet of honor in the kitchen—such as it was—and while Aunt Julie might not admire the quality of the refreshment provided, she had to approve of its quantity.
    She whipped off her gloves just in time to accept her Bloody Mary, no celery. “Haven’t you opened it yet?”
    â€œOf course not. It’s not mine.”
    â€œFor God’s sake, my dear. Did your mother raise you with no standards at all?” She drained down half a glass, set the tumbler on the table, and put her hand on the valise’s tarnished brass clasp. “Well, well.”
    â€œNow, wait just a minute.” I darted over and snatched her hand away.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œI don’t think we have any right to look inside.”
    â€œDarling, she’ll never know.”
    â€œHow do we know that?”
    â€œNobody’s heard from her for fifty years. I’d say that was a pretty decent indication, wouldn’t you?”
    â€œWe should make some sort of effort to track her down first.”
    Aunt Julie rolled her eyes and picked up her pick-me-up. “Ah, that’s good. You’re the only one of my nieces and nephews to mix a decent drink.”
    â€œI had the finest instruction available.”
    She wagged a finger. “Teach a girl to fish—”
    â€œLook, Aunt Julie, about this Violet of yours . . .”
    But Aunt Julie had already turned, aiming for the kitchen and a refill, and stopped with a rattle of dying ice. “Vivian, my dear,” she said slowly, “there’s a man on your sofa.”
    â€œYou don’t approve?”
    â€œOh, I approve wholeheartedly. But I do feel compelled to ask, for form’s sake, where the hell you picked him up on such