Free Darker Than You Think by Unknown

you
whenever you have time to listen. So please drive out when you can."
    He
couldn't speak of all the reasons behind his interest in April
Bell—he wasn't even sure that he fully understood them. Yet a
flood of pity for the blind woman in her bereavement made him regret
his impatience, and he said clumsily: "Sorry, Rowena. I'll come
to see you as soon as I can."
    "Watch
yourself, Will!" cried that sweetly urgent voice. "Watch
yourself with her tonight. Because that woman plans to injure
you—dreadfully!"
    "Injure
me?" he whispered unbelievingly. "How?"
    "Come
out tomorrow," Rowena said, "I'll tell you."
    "Please
explain—" Barbee gasped before he heard her hang up. He
put the receiver back, and stood a moment wondering what she could
have meant. He could see no possible reason behind her words—unless
she had turned her dog's savage lunge at April's kitten into a
personal antagonism.
    Rowena
Mondrick, he remembered, had been given to spells of moody
strangeness ever since he knew her. Usually serene and normal as any
seeing person, keenly alive with her friends and her music, often
even gay—sometimes she left her piano and ignored her friends,
seeming to care only for the company of her huge dog and the caress
of the odd silver jewelry she wore.
    Her
strangeness must be a natural aftermath of that ghastly event in
Africa, Barbee supposed, and Mondrick's sudden death had awakened her
old terrors. He'd see her in the morning, and do what he could to
soothe her irrational fears. He'd try to remember to take her a
couple of new records for the automatic phonograph Sam and Nora Quain
had given her.
    But
now he was going to meet April Bell.
    The
bar at the Knob Hill was a semicircular glass-walled room, indirectly
lit with a baleful, dim red glare. The seats were green leather and
chromium, too angular for comfort. The whole effect was sleek and
hard and disturbing—perhaps it was intended, Barbee thought, to
goad unsuspecting patrons into buying drinks enough so they wouldn't
be aware of it April Bell flashed her scarlet smile at him from a
tiny black table under an arch of red-lit glass. The white fur was
tossed carelessly over the back of another chair, and she somehow
looked utterly relaxed in the angular seat, as if this deliberately
jarring atmosphere didn't disturb her. Indeed, her long oval face
reflected a satisfaction that seemed almost feline.
    Her
rather daring evening gown was a deep green that accented the eager
green of her slightly oblique eyes. Barbee hadn't even thought of
wearing dinner jacket or tails, and for a moment he was uncomfortably
aware of his gray year-old business suit, a little too loose on his
lank frame. But April didn't seem to mind and he forgot, in his
instant appreciation of all the white-wolf coat had hidden. The
white, well-groomed flesh of her seemed infinitely desirable, yet
something made him think of the blind woman's warning.
    "May
I have a daiquiri?" she asked.
    Barbee
ordered two daiquiris.
    He
sat looking at her across the little table, so close he caught her
clean perfume. Almost drunk before the drinks came with the sheen of
her red hair and the dark intensity of her long eyes, the warm charm
of her eager-seeming smile and the lithe vitality of her perfect body
—he found it hard to recall his plan of action.
    The
velvet caress of her slightly husky voice made him want to forget
that he suspected her of murder— yet he knew he could never
forget, until he learned the truth. The frantic unrest in him, the
sharp conflict of bright hope and vaguely dreadful terror, would not
be stilled.
    He
had tried, driving across the long river bridge, to plan his inquiry.
Motivation, it seemed to him, was the essential point. If it were
true that she knew nothing of Mondrick, and had no reason to wish him
harm, then the whole thing became fantastic nonsense. Even if the
kitten's accidental presence had actually caused the fatal attack,
that unfortunate coincidence