While My Pretty One Sleeps (34 page)

Authors: Mary Higgins Clark

BOOK: While My Pretty One Sleeps

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Douglas Brown listened incredulously to the report on
The CBS Evening News
, then sat down on Ethel's bedâno, his bedâand held his head in his hands. It was over. Those cops couldn't prove he'd taken Ethel's money. He was her heir. He was rich.

He wanted to celebrate. He pulled out his wallet and reached for the phone number of the friendly receptionist from work. Then he hesitated. That kid who cleaned, the actress. There was something about her. That idiotic name. “Tse-Tse.” She was listed in Ethel's personal telephone directory.

The phone rang three times, then was picked up. “Allo.”

She must have a French roommate, Doug concluded. “May I speak to Tse-Tse, please? This is Doug Brown.”

Tse-Tse, who was auditioning for the part of a French prostitute, forgot her accent. “Drop dead, twerp,” she told him, and slammed down the receiver.

Devin Stanton, Archbishop designate of the Baltimore diocese, stood at the door of the living room and watched the silhouette of Neeve and Jack against the windows. Beyond them a crescent moon had
finally broken through the clouds. With rising anger, Devin thought of the cruelty, greed and hypocrisy of Sal Esposito. Before his clerical training recaptured Christian charity, he muttered to himself, “That murdering bastard.” Then, as he watched Neeve in Jack's arms, he thought, Renata, I hope and pray you're aware.

Behind him in the den, Myles reached for the bottle of wine. Kitty was sitting in a corner of the couch, her red hair soft and shimmering under the glow of the Victorian table lamp. Myles heard himself say, “Your hair is a lovely shade of red. I think my mother would have called it strawberry blond. Would that be right?”

Kitty smiled. “At one time. Now nature is being helped along.”

“In your case nature doesn't need any help.” Myles felt suddenly tongue-tied. How do you thank a woman for saving your daughter's life? If Kitty had not connected the sketch to the Pacific Reef look, he would not have reached Neeve on time. Myles thought of how Neeve and Kitty and Jack had wrapped their arms around him after the cops took Sal away. He had sobbed, “I didn't listen to Renata. I never listened. And because of that, she went to him and died.”

“She went to him for an expert's opinion,” Kitty had said firmly. “Be honest enough to admit you couldn't have offered her that.”

How do you tell a woman that because of her presence the terrible rage and guilt you've carried all these years is in the past, that instead of feeling empty and devastated, you feel strong and eager to really live the rest of your life? There was no way.

Myles realized he was still holding the wine bottle. He looked
around for her glass.

“I'm not sure where it is,” Kitty told him. “I guess I laid it down somewhere.”

There
was
a way to tell her. Deliberately Myles filled his own glass to the brim and handed it to Kitty. “Have mine.”

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Neeve and Jack stood at the window and looked out over the Hudson River, the parkway, the outline of the apartment houses and restaurants that loomed on the waterfront of New Jersey.

“Why did you go to Sal's office?” Neeve asked quietly.

“Ethel's notes on Sal were annotated with references to the Pacific Reef look. She had a whole bunch of magazine ads showing that look, and next to them she'd done a sketch. The sketch reminded me of something and I realized I'd seen the same one in your mother's cook-book.”

“And you knew?”

“I remembered you telling me how Sal created that look after your mother died. Ethel's notes showed that Sal claimed he'd gotten the inspiration for the Pacific Reef look at the Aquarium in Chicago. That simply wasn't possible. Everything fell into place when I realized that. Then, knowing you were with him, I almost went crazy.”

All those years ago, Renata as a ten-year-old child, hurrying home in the midst of two armies shooting at each other, had, because of a “feeling,” gone into church and saved a wounded American soldier. Neeve felt Jack's arm go around her waist. The movement was not tentative, but sure and steady.

“Neeve?”

All these years she'd been telling Myles that when it happened, she would know it.

As Jack drew her closer to him, she knew that that time had finally come.

Books by Mary Higgins Clark

All Through the Night

You Belong to Me

Pretend You Don't See Her

My Gal Sunday

Moonlight Becomes You

Silent Night

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

The Lottery Winner

Remember Me

I'll Be Seeing You

All Around the Town

Loves Music, Loves to Dance

The Anastasia Syndrome and Other Stories

While My Pretty One Sleeps

Weep No More, My Lady

Stillwatch

A Cry in the Night

The Cradle Will Fall

A Stranger Is Watching

Where Are the Children
?

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.