Free Promises in the Night: A Classic Romance - Book 2 by Barbara Bretton Page B

opera?”
    “Can’t,” she mumbled. “It’s a school downstairs.”
    “Downstairs where?”
    “Don’t know second floor... somewhere.”
    He caught Marty’s eye. “Does the school have a lot of students, Karen?”
    “Mmm. They take the train.”
    “The subway?”
    A chuckle. “No.”
    “What train, Karen? How do the students get there?” His stomach twisted into a knot of steel.
    “The train.”
    Good God, just let him control his temper a little longer. “Which train, Karen? I love opera.”
    “The Long Isl—Oh, no, Doctor. No fair...”
    What wasn’t fair was the way this woman was drifting into death, and there seemed to be nothing he could do to stop her.

----
    S he’d been wrong , one hundred and ten percent wrong.
    As Larkin watched Alex Jakobs attempt to pull Karen back toward life, she suddenly knew exactly why he had ordered the camera to keep rolling.
    Alex understood more about the power of television than anyone Larkin had ever met. He was using that power to keep a woman alive. The sweat on his forehead glittered in the hot stage lights, but he seemed to notice nothing beyond the camera focused on him and the woman whose life he held in his hands. He had taken a cool medium and transformed it into something as intimate as a hand to hold when life seemed at its bleakest.
    Her admiration for him skyrocketed.
    However, the fact still remained that unless help could reach her in time, Karen would die.
    The director raced in from the reception area. “What’s going on?” he asked Larkin. “Any progress?”
    “Not much,” she whispered. “A first name.”
    Marty muttered a curse. “The phone company is getting nowhere. A storm has some of the lines down.”
    Alex caught Marty’s eye. Marty shook his head and Larkin saw a brief flash of despair on Alex’s face.
    “What’s all that music in the background?” Marty asked Larkin as an aria from Carmen, badly sung, floated from the studio’s sound system. “She got a radio on?”
    “No. She lives over a music studio.”
    “Great,” Marty muttered. “There’s only seven thousand music studios in our viewing area. We should be able to find her by the turn of the century.”
    On camera, Alex turned slightly to wipe sweat from his face. “I like the music,” he said calmly. “Do they give recitals, Karen?”
    No response.
    “Don’t give up on me now, Karen! Damn it, answer me.”
    Karen’s voice, weak and indistinct to begin with, faded until her words were totally obliterated by the sound of a railroad train rumbling close by.
    “What train is that?” Alex asked over the roar of engines. “What train would you take?”
    “Tired... let me sleep.”
    Alex stood up and the camera angled upward to maintain the close-up of his face. “Sleep later. What train; Karen? How can I get to the school?”
    “Will you let me sleep then?”
    “Of course,” he said, and Larkin knew he was lying. He wasn’t a man to give up while there was still hope. His power and energy seemed to fill the studio.
    “Syosset,” Karen said finally.
    Alex continued to speak, but Larkin was pulled back into memory. When the Learning Center was first starting up its music courses, she had personally visited every musician and coach on Long Island in an attempt to lure them into teaching a class for her. There were at least five in Syosset that she knew about. It was worth a shot.
    Larkin turned and ran for the reception area and the telephone book. Alex’s strong voice and Karen’s steadily fading one echoed in her ears as the studio door closed behind her.
    “Hang on, Karen,” she whispered as she reached for the phone. “We’re almost there.”

----
    T hanks to Larkin’s call , the police were able to track down Karen O’Rourke to a small apartment next to Ogilvie’s House of Music and Dance in Syosset, a stop on the Huntington line of the Long Island Railroad. A squad car and ambulance were on their way.
    For the last ten minutes the silence