Midnight Voices Read Online Free

if they spent nothing on snacks or even just Cokes.
    Thirty dollars that a year ago would have been nothing.
    Thirty dollars that now she simply didn’t have.
    Not with the rent unpaid, and all the credit cards maxed out.
    Laurie read her mother’s expression perfectly. “I have some money,” she said. “I’ve got more than a hundred dollars in my baby-sitting account. Why can’t I take us?”
    “Because you’re going to need that money for college,” Caroline replied. “And just because things are a little tight for me right now, we’re not going to raid your baby-sitting account.”
    “I’ve got some money in my piggy bank,” Ryan offered, his scowl giving way to a worried frown. “We could use that.”
    The phone rescued Caroline from having to figure out a way to reject Ryan’s offer without hurting his feelings, but as soon as she heard Claire Robinson’s voice, she suspected that whatever plans she and the kids might have had for the day were about to be ruined. Her employer was using the extra cheerful tone that Caroline and the two other people who worked at Antiques By Claire had learned to recognize as the precursor to words that were going to be nowhere near as pleasant as the voice that uttered them.
    “Caroline, darling?” she trilled, and Caroline could picture her sitting behind her Louis XIV desk, a cigarette between the first two fingers of her right hand as she cradled the phone on her left shoulder, flipping through the pages of an auction catalog even as she spoke. “I have the most e
nor
mous favor to ask you. And I know it’s a terrible imposition, but I simply don’t know where else to turn!”
    Caroline translated the words in her mind: Kevin and Elise either hadn’t answered their phones, or had been un-swayed by Claire’s entreaties. But neither Kevin nor Elise needed their jobs as badly as did Caroline. Kevin had his partner, Mark, and Elise had her alimony payments. “What is it, Claire?”
    “I
know
you always spend Saturdays with the children, and I
know
I have simply no right at all to ask, but is there
any
chance you could sit in the shop for a few hours? I hope it won’t be more than two, and I can’t i
ma
gine it will be more than four or five.”
    “I promised Ryan we’d go to the park this morning, and then—”
    “Then it will be perfect! There’s a Queen Anne demilune table going down at Sotheby’s this afternoon that I simply can’t let go to anyone else. It’s an exact match for the one in Estelle Hollinan’s foyer, and Estelle will kill us all if I don’t get it for her. So if you’ll just be here at one, I’ll duck out for no more than an hour or two.”
    Seeing the disappointment in both her children’s eyes as they began to suspect that they might not be going anywhere at all—park or zoo—Caroline made one last attempt at escaping from Claire. “Can’t you call Kevin or Elise? The children and I always—”
    The mask of cheeriness in Claire’s voice fell away. “No, Caroline, I can’t. Kevin and Mark went to Provincetown, and Elise has commitments.”
    As if I don’t,
Caroline thought silently.
    “And, frankly, I’d think you’d welcome the chance to make a few dollars. Your sales haven’t been as good as they might be.”
    Though the threat wasn’t made directly, Caroline could feel it as keenly as if it were a knife pressed against her throat. “Of course I can help out, Claire,” she said, trying to make her defeat sound as much like a gracious gesture as she could. “I’ll be there at one.”
    She hung up the phone, but her hand lingered on the receiver.
What else?
she thought.
    What else can go wrong?
    It was as if the thought itself had cued the phone to ring, and she jerked her fingers away from the receiver as if they’d been burned. The phone rang a second time, then a third, but Caroline simply stood there, staring mutely at it.
I don’t care who you are,
she thought.
I don’t care what you want. I can’t deal