Read Online Suffer the Children by John Saul - Free Book Online

the value of the property without taking any business from the rest of tie merchants. In her mind’s eye she saw the armory as she would remodel it: sandblasted, its century-old brick cleaned of the years of grime, with white trim, and a few changes in the façade to give it an inviting look instead of the grim air with which it had always looked down on the town around it.
    She jaywalked across the street to the
Courier
office and went in.
    “Hi, Sylvia.” She smiled. “Is my husband in?”
    Jack’s secretary returned her smile. “He’s in, but he’s a bear today. What did you do to him this morning?”
    “Just the usual,” Rose said. “Tied him up and thrashed him. He squalls, but he loves it.” Without knocking, Rose let herself into her husband’s office, closing the door behind her, and crossed to his desk, leaned over, and kissed him warmly.
    “Hello, darling,” she said, her eye not missing the fact that the intercom was open. “I hear you’re having a bad day.” As Jack looked at her in puzzlement, she pointed to the intercom unit on his desk. He nodded and switched it off.
    “You seem cheerful enough,” he said sourly.
    “I am, now. But we almost had a disaster this morning.” She recounted what had happened with the van.
    “George is sure he set the brake?” Jack said when she had finished.
    Rose nodded. “But he must not have. If he did, then there’s only one explanation for what happened. Sarah.” Jack seemed to lose a little of his color.
    “So the school wants to talk to us about her on Thursday afternoon?” He made a note on his calendar.
    “Not about what happened this morning,” Rose said quickly. “Although I should imagine that will come up too. My God, Jack, they all would have been killed. Not one of them would have had a chance.”
    “And you really think Sarah might have released the brake?”
    “I don’t know what to think,” Rose said uncertainly. “I suppose I’m trying not to think at all until we talk to the school.”
    “I could take the rest of the day off,” Jack offered. “We could play a round of golf.”
    Rose smiled, but shook her head. “If you want to, go ahead. But not me. I have an appointment that I’m almost late for, and I think it’s going to be a good one. I’m going to try to sell the Barnes place. If I can pull that off, it will do a lot more for me than a game of golf.” She stood up. “For some reason, work seems to relax me.”
    “I wish it did the same for me,” Jack replied. He didn’t get up, and Rose felt a surge of anger that he wouldn’t play the game with her. “Send Sylvia in as you leave, will you?”
    Rose started to make a reply, then changed her mind. Silently, she left the office, forcing her face into a cheerful expression for Sylvia Bannister’s benefit.
    “He is a bear,” she said to Sylvia. “And he wants you in his den. Got to run.” Without waiting for the secretary to speak, Rose left the building and hurried across the square. By the time she had reached her own office, she had put her personal life back into its compartment, and was ready to greet her clients.
    “So that’s about it,” Rose said a couple of hours later. “As far as I can tell, these are the only three houses in Port Arbello that come anywhere close to what you’re looking for. I could show you more, but I’d only be wasting your time. Why don’t we start with these two, and save this one for last.” She picked up the listing for the Barnes property, tucked it beneath the other two, and stood up.
    “Can we all fit in your car, or shall we follow you?” Carl Stevens asked.
    “Let’s take mine. That way I can give you a running commentary on the town. If you want all the dirt, you’ll have to talk to my husband. I’ve only been here twenty years, and the people don’t really trust me yet.”
    Barbara Stevens grinned at her. “That’s why I love towns like this. If you weren’t born here, people leave you alone. And you