Read Online Murder on Astor Place by Victoria Thompson - Free Book Online

confided in me. If she had, I might have been able to stop her from making our family a laughingstock. But you saw her the night before she died. Perhaps she said something to you, something that would explain her behavior.”
    This time Sarah could not mistake the calculating gleam in Mina’s eyes. Sarah wasn’t the only one interested in the circumstances of Alicia’s death. Mina wanted every scrap of information Sarah could give her about her sister, and she wanted it now.
    “I only saw her for a moment. We didn’t really speak at all,” Sarah admitted. Was Mina relieved or annoyed? Sarah couldn’t be sure. “I didn’t even know who she was then, except that she looked so much like you—like the way I remembered you when we were girls—that I actually called her Mina. That seemed to frighten her, but I suppose that’s because she was afraid of being found out.”
    “Of course she was, the stupid little baggage!” Mina said angrily. “She was afraid we’d bring her back to the bosom of her family where she was doted upon and pampered. Where her every wish was instantly granted, and where she never had to turn her hand except to feed herself.”
    “But something must have driven her away,” Sarah prompted, recalling her own sister and how she, too, had run away from much the same situation. “Perhaps there was a young man—”
    “What on earth makes you think that?” Mina demanded, but then she remembered. “Oh, because of Maggie,” she said knowingly, instantly tearing open old wounds that Sarah had thought long healed. “Well, Alicia wasn’t a bit like your sister. She didn’t have ideals.” She said the word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth. “Alicia was just selfish and silly, and she certainly didn’t run off out of love for some common laborer. Even if she’d known any young men—which she didn’t—Alicia never loved anyone but herself.”
    Sarah bit back the urge to defend the two girls. Maggie was past caring, just as Alicia was. Still, she couldn’t leave Mina basking in her self-righteousness, especially not if enlightening her might help find Alicia’s killer.
    Trying to pretend she took no pleasure in hurting Mina in return, Sarah said, “I think you must be mistaken about your sister, Mina. She most certainly knew at least one young man. You see, I’m fairly certain she was with child.”
    “What?” Mina’s face went scarlet and her eyes blazed with outrage. “How dare you say such a thing!”
    “Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to shame her like this, but I thought you should know. Your father can probably keep it from becoming public, but finding out who the father of her child was will undoubtedly help the police find her killer, since he probably—”
    “The police ?” Mina echoed scornfully. She was sitting bolt upright now, fairly quivering with fury. “You mean that horrible Irishman who came here to tell us Alicia was dead? Well, I won’t have it! I won’t have someone like that probing into our lives and spreading lies and gossip about us! Father will never allow it. He’ll put a stop to this investigation immediately!”
    “Then how will you find out who killed her?” Sarah asked.
    “I don’t care who killed her! Why should I when she never cared about any of us? And what good will finding her killer do anyway? It won’t bring her back, and it will only ruin the lives of those of us she left behind, and we’ve suffered enough already!”
    “But you can’t—”
    “Sarah, I think you’d better leave now. You’ve caused enough trouble for one day. And if I hear a word of these lies about Alicia being spread about, I’ll know who’s responsible. I can see to it that you are never again received by any respectable family in the city!”
    It was a threat designed to terrify, one that would most certainly have terrified Mina, and Sarah didn’t have the heart to tell her that she hadn’t been received by any of those families for years