Read Online Puzzle for Fiends by Patrick Quentin - Free Book Online

table eventually said eleven o’clock. I thought of leaning over and turning out the light but I felt too lazy to make the effort.
    Dr. Croft’s words, in retrospect, were reassuring. He had suggested a second opinion. No phony doctor would have done that. I was forgetting my doubts. The pillows were soft. I shut my eyes. I was drifting off into some fanciful half dream when I realized the door was opening. Lifting my lids the fraction of an inch, I looked through my lashes.
    Selena had tiptoed in. She moved toward my bed. I don’t know why I feigned sleep, but I did. She paused at my side and looked down at me, studying my features with a long, speculative stare.
    Squinting as I was, her image was blurred. I could see the cream hair gleaming in the subdued light, hear her light breathing and smell her perfume, warm and faint, a summer meadow perfume that seemed to catch the very essence of her free, country beauty.
    Satisfied that I was asleep, she stretched voluptuously, her breasts sprouting upward. She half turned away, reached behind her back for buttons and pulled the white dress off over her head. She tossed the dress carelessly onto the chaise longue, and kicked off her shoes.
    Humming very softly, she moved to the french windows, tugged back the heavy drapes and stood staring out. The glittering California moonlight, streaming around her, turned her hair silver and gave her skin the bluish delicacy of milk. The picture she made was so entrancing that I forgot I was supposed to be asleep.
    “Hello, Selena,” I said.
    She turned, the hair swirling around her bare shoulders. She came to my bed, sat down and took my hand, quite unembarrassed. She smiled her vivid smile.
    “Baby, I thought you were asleep.”
    She leaned over me, kissing me on the lips, relaxing against me. Once again, her nearness brought summer images. Hayfields. Soft, warm sand with the faint murmur of waves. When Selena was near, only the thoughts she conjured up existed. Everything else dissolved.
    “Where’ve you been all evening?” I asked.
    She shifted her head on my chest. Her face was so close that I could feel her lashes fluttering against mine. “Miss me, baby?”
    “Sure I missed you. What were you doing?”
    “Oh, nothing,” she shrugged. “Nothing delirious. Just bridge. Mimsey adores it and she’s only just been able to play again. It was far too sinful for your father. Just the four of us. Mimsey, Marny, me and Nate.”
    “Nate? I thought he had to go to another patient. That’s what he said.”
    Her laugh was rich, husky. “I know, darling, but Mimsey wanted a fourth so I persuaded him to stay. Didn’t Mimsey give you a sleeping thing?”
    I shook my head.
    She kissed me. “Mimsey fancies herself as a nurse. Personally I’d think twice about letting her loose on a sick baboon. Never mind, baby. I’ll be here for the rest of the night. If you want anything—shout.”
    “Anything?” I let my hand stray over her glossy shoulder.
    “In time, baby. In time.” She grinned and fell back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Oh, life is such fun. Why do people have complexes and things? Why don’t they do what they want when they want and wallow in life instead of glooming around in Clean Living Leagues, with warts on their noses and smelly breath? Sleepy, baby?”
    “No.”
    “Want to start remembering things?”
    “No.”
    “What do you want to do?”
    “Just this.”
    “Baby!’ She took my head between both her hands. “You,” she said studying me. “Your jaw’s right. You smell nice. You’ve got real arms. Your lips are so—serviceable. You and your plaster of Paris.”
    She kissed me again, pressing herself almost fiercely against me. The spell of her was like a drug. I had seen her only twice to remember and yet I was already feeling as if I must always have wanted her in my life. It was a strange, rather frightening sensation—not like remembered love, rougher