The Third Eye

The Third Eye Read Online Free PDF

Book: The Third Eye Read Online Free PDF
Author: Lois Duncan
have friends over when you’re sitting. How did you get home?”
    “Tim brought me.”
    “They didn’t hold him for questioning?”
    “No,” Karen said. “It wasn’t as if he did it on purpose.”
    “Well, I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” Mrs. Connors said. “It could easily have ended in tragedy.”
    “I know that, Mom.”
    “You’ll never work again at the Zenners’. They’ll tell other people, too. This is the sort of thing that gets around.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “There’s no sense in beating a dead horse, Wanda,” Mr. Connors interjected. “Karen’s learned a lesson, and, as it turns out, there’s a happy ending.”
    He reached again for the remote. The volume came surging up, and sounds of hysterical gaiety filled the room.
    Karen regarded her father with gratitude. For once, his detached approach to life seemed less a fault than a virtue.
    “I’m tired,” she said against the noise. “I’m going to bed.”
    She climbed the stairs to the second floor and went down the hall to her room. The door stood ajar, and she pushed it open and turned on the light. Pale blue curtains billowed gently at either side of the open window, and the lavender-colored flowered spread that covered the bed gave the impression of a garden filled with forget-me-nots. A white porcelain lamp stood on the bedside table, and a shelf that ran the length of the wall held a collection of costumed dolls left over from Karen’s childhood.
    This room was the one space in the house that was completely her own. The watercolor landscapes that brightened the walls were pictures she herself had selected. The bookcase was filled with volumes of her own choosing: poetry, historical fiction, and romances—the opposite of the newspapers and nonfiction books her father kept piled on the living room coffeetable or the Book of the Month Club selections her mother subscribed to.
    Closing the door, Karen stood quiet for a moment, letting the room’s peace become a part of her. Then she drew a deep breath and crossed the room to the window.
    The cool night air, faintly perfumed with the scent of hyacinths, brushed against her face, and night noises rose lightly to her ears. She could hear the soft rustle of new leaves whispering as a breeze stirred through them. A dog barked once in a neighboring yard, and there was the sound of a door being opened and slammed shut.
    Somewhere a baby cried. The thin, far wail came muffled by distance, like an echo from a dream. She listened as it rose and fell and rose again and then died away into silence. She could not remember ever having been this tired.
    She turned from the window, flicked off the light switch, and moved through the darkness to the bed. Sinking down upon it, she was immediately overcome by exhaustion. Her arms and legs settled into the mattress like leaden weights. The moment her head touched the pillow, sleep descended like a heavy blanket, closing out the world.
    In hours or perhaps only minutes—there was no way of knowing which—Karen was jarred awake by a sharp, staccato rapping. She tried to shove the sound away, but even as she did so she knew that it would continue until she responded. She felt no surprise. Somewhere, deep inside her, she had realized all along that it was not going to be this easy. The day’sevents were bound to cause some repercussion beyond the mild question-and-answer sequence in the den.
    “Karen?” It was her mother’s voice.
    “Yes,” Karen mumbled.
    “You’re not asleep yet, are you? May I come in?”
    “Sure, if you want to.” Why had she bothered asking? She was going to come in anyway, regardless of the answer.
    Karen heard the sound of the knob turning and forced her eyes open in response to the sudden splash of light from the hall.
    Her mother stood silhouetted in the doorway.
    “You never said how they found him,” she said.
    “He was in the trunk of Tim’s car,” Karen said groggily.
    “That’s
where
they found him,
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