Read Online Dark on the Other Side by Barbara Michaels - Free Book Online Page B

hostess was taken ill.
Linda wondered where he was. She wondered why she cared—why this one
man’s absence from a room could make it feel empty. Especially now,
after that unexpected fiasco at the window…
    She forced herself to concentrate on the important
presences. Gordon and Hank Gold made a significant little group,
standing with their backs turned, talking in voices so low she could
not make out the words. She didn’t need to hear, she knew what they
were saying. Once Gordon had made her visit Gold professionally. The
doctor had poked every muscle in her body and taken samples of
everything that was detachable. Then he had sat and talked. She had not
been in good shape that day; the trend of the conversation had got away
from her. Finally she had had to invent an excuse for leaving. It was a
flight, rather than departure, and Gold had been well aware of it.
After that, she had refused to consult him again; had he not admitted
that all her physical tests were normal? But she couldn’t prevent
Gordon from inviting his friend and neighbor to dinner occasionally.
She couldn’t always excuse herself on the grounds of a headache. She
couldn’t keep Gordon from telling him things.
    And now—now she would have to fight. If there was the
slightest hint, the least admission of what she thought she had
seen…Panic twisted her stomach. Michael. Had she spoken to him in the
last seconds, gasped out any damning description of the thing that
stood glaring outside the window? There was no need to wonder whether
he had seen it. No one saw it except she herself. Once, when she was
showing Hank Gold the gardens, it had passed through the darkening
twilight like a flash of black fog. Turning, at her startled
exclamation, he had denied seeing anything except a shadow. That made
it all the more important that she should not mention the word now—that
deadly, ominous common noun.
    The conference ended. They turned and came to her, Gordon
first, the doctor following, scratching at his chin.
    “Bed for you, baby,” Gordon said, with a forced smile.
“Hank says you’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep.”
    Linda gathered her wits together.
    “Hank probably hates both of us,” she said. “Dragging him
out in the middle of the night just because I fainted.”
    Gordon’s smile faded.
    “I couldn’t get you out of it,” he said. “This can’t go
on, Linda. You must agree—”
    A hand on his arm stopped him. Gold was smiling, but his
eyes gave him away.
    “This girl needs rest, Gordon, not a lecture. We’ll
discuss it in the morning.”
    “Sorry,” Gordon muttered.
    “Nothing to be sorry about.” It was farcical, the
contrast between Gold’s smile, his casual voice, and his intent,
betraying stare. “Here, Linda, pop one of these down. Then off you go.
I’ll see you in the morning.”
    It appeared as if by legerdemain, a small white capsule
lost in the vast pink reaches of his hand.
    “What is it?” Linda asked.
    “Just a mild sedative. So you can sleep.”
    Trapped, Linda looked from the little pill to Gold’s
face—pink, smiling and inexorable.
    Silently she took the capsule. What was the use?
    When she had swallowed it, both men seemed to heave a
simultaneous sigh of relief. They expected more of a fight, Linda
thought, and derived a faint, grim satisfaction from fooling them even
that much. This was right; this was how she had to behave from now on.
She had been wrong, before, to struggle openly.
    “I’ll carry you,” Gordon said.
    She waved him off.
    “Up all those stairs? I can walk perfectly well.”
    The room wavered as she sat up and Gold came to her
assistance. She was glad to lean on the arm he offered. It was better
than some of the other possibilities. Now that she was standing, she
could see Michael, near the door. She walked slowly toward him, leaning
on the doctor’s arm.
    It was impossible for her to tell, from his carefully
controlled face, what he might have heard—or repeated. But