Read Online A Secret Rage by Charlaine Harris - Free Book Online Page B

indeedy.
    ‘Well. Moving right along, are you a native son of Knolls?’ I asked.
    ‘Born and bred. Good family: father, mother, two sisters married to good men. Went to law school, joined my father’s firm. All set. Now all I need is a wife just like Mimi.’
    Now
that
was a fixation. The Houghton children seemed to inspire them, I observed to myself. I glanced involuntarily across the room to Cully.
    ‘Good luck,’ I said. I didn’t know if I meant it or not. At least Charles Seward came from Mimi’s world – a plus. He saluted me and plunged into the crowd, surely in search of Mimi.
    Make Them Seek.
    I stared thoughtfully after him and wished my wine glass was full.
    ‘What do you think?’ asked a voice somewhere over my head. Cully stood very close behind me. How had he gotten here so fast? He handed me a full glass and took my empty one. He must have taken a mind-reading course for his doctorate.
    ‘I think his chances are good,’ I said soberly. ‘Do you like him?’
    ‘Fairly well. He’s a little too hearty for me. I haven’t been impressed with Mimi’s husbands so far . . . Charles is several degrees better than Richard or Gerald. Mimi didn’t much like my wife, either. It looks like a pattern.’
    It was fortunate that someone hooted for Cully to return to the bar, since I had no idea what to say to that I’d already opened my mouth to try, though; and it wasn’t wasted effort. Alicia Merritt flew up to me, and we shrieked at each other for a while. I also got to visit – a little – with her husband, Ray, whom I dimly remembered as the boy who’d called Alicia every night long-distance while we were at Miss Beacham’s.
    Ray was a light-complexioned, sandy, solid type: Alicia’s paperweight, I thought, inspired by the wine, He didn’t seem overwhelmingly glad to see me. He’d always been one to mistrust the different, I recalled.
    After the Merritts joined Jeff Simmons’s coterie, I went back into general circulation, from time to time going down the hall to the kitchen to get more munchies for the table.
    About midnight, the crowd seemed to be thinning out. Time for the babysitters to go home, I guessed. Cully had abandoned his post to talk to his father and Ray Merritt. Elaine was being mooned over by a youngish bachelor coach from the college. Mimi’s red dress wasn’t hard to spot; but Charles Seward wasn’t looming over her, to my surprise. When we met by chance in the kitchen, Mimi told me rather proudly that he’d be working all weekend on a court case for Monday, and had left to plunge back into his preparations; so I mentally excused Charles for being late. Stan and Barbara said a slightly tipsy goodbye, and it seemed that Theo and Sarah Chase Cochran had already left. I’d never gotten over to her corner to meet Theo’s wife, and I chided myself. As I was totting up the remaining guests, I saw Elaine neatly detach herself from the young coach and collect Don.
    My facial muscles were aching from my hostess smile. I rubbed my cheeks as I surreptitiously began to check nooks and crannies, tracking down the glasses that people leave in such odd places. I took a few back to the kitchen as unobtrusively as possible, and there was trapped by a professor who wanted to talk about the Romantic poets, apparently with a view to getting my mind on the general subject. After I smiled him out the front door with a hearty handshake, I found a few more glasses and plates and exchanged chatter with a few more people.
    So when I considered it later, I decided it was about forty-five minutes after the Houghtons left that the phone rang. I happened to be blotting up a ring on the hall phone stand, an old-fashioned arched one built into the wall. I lifted the receiver automatically and said hello.
    ‘Nickie? Nick?’
    Elaine Houghton. ‘Yes, ma’am?’
    ‘I have something kind of nasty to tell you, now. You and Mimi lock up extra careful tonight, you hear? A friend of mine who rents her