[Oxrun Station] The Last Call of Mourning Read Online Free

that kept them afloat. She was glad her back was to the room. There was enough talk in the Station these days about the company she kept, gossip that had twice caused a fierce row with her parents. Not, she thought in soft silent scolding, that Ed Grange was poor company. Only . . . unexpected. The Yarrows, after all, were from beyond the park; and Ed was the owner of a firm that specialized in security work—providing guards and part-time patrolmen for those functions the Station's own limited force was unable to man adequately without skimping somewhere else. Ed himself was an ex-Station cop, and as such there was no animosity or professional rivalry between himself and Abe Stockton, the chief of police. The need was recognized, and pride in one meant pride in the other.
    "Cyd, I think I'm coming down with the Plague."
    She nodded absently. Staring at him, not seeing him. It was no secret that he loved her—at least not to her—and in the beginning she'd thought it a compliment to what she hoped was her fine humor and a caring about herself without the taint of vanity. But as for reciprocation . . . not, she thought, until she had worked out some proofs for her being.
    She never supped with him, then, or walked with him through the park or along the streets; but he always managed to be at the house when there were too many dowagers with too many jewels, or checking the guards who patrolled the estates at night when she stepped out alone for a stroll along the Pike. Before Europe there had been those arguments with her parents, and since then . . . she frowned in abrupt realization—her mother suddenly didn't seem to care, and her father said nothing beyond a faint scowl whenever he happened to see them talking.
    "Cyd, there's a purple scorpion in your hair. I think he's looking for a vacancy."
    "Yarrow's Yard," she said, as though through a dream.
    "What?"
    "Yarrow's Yesterdays, maybe."
    "Cyd, maybe I ought to get you a doctor, huh? Maybe I grabbed you too hard. Did you hit your head when—"
    "Oh, sit down, Ed! You're making a scene." He froze at her words and lowered himself slowly. "Good," she said. "That's better."
    He grunted, sipped at his drink and grimaced. "God," he said. "Not enough blood, too much Mary." And he caught the waitress' elbow to ask for a glass of tomato juice.
    "You're getting soft," she told him. "I remember the day you took a whole—what was it, a fifth of vodka?—and downed it without stopping."
    "You'll also remember that I threw up and passed out."
    "In Mother's garden no less. Her roses to be exact. I thought she would go through the roof." She laughed lightly, took some of her wine and let the warmth slide and ease the faint trembling. Then she stared at him, appraising. "You need a new suit," she decided. "Brown becomes you better than that blue thing."
    He looked down at his chest, brushing at his lapels and running a palm along the length of his knit tie. "It serves. I must be inconspicuous, you know."
    "You'd be more inconspicuous naked."
    His eyebrows lifted. "You know about such things?"
    Her sigh was jaded. "Europe had nothing better, I'm afraid," she said, setting an invisible monocle to her right eye. "It was frightfully difficult in Venice, however. The gondola rocking and all that. And I damn near fell out of the Tower of Pisa." She grinned, softened it when she saw she was teasing too much, that Ed for all his graces never understood when she was pulling his leg. "Ed," she said after a deliberate pause, "thank you. Really. I—"
    "Hey, listen," he interrupted, not unkindly, "it's almost five and I have to get going. There's a charity fair at the high school tonight, and what with  Thanksgiving vacation and all, the college crowd is going to be looking for some action."
    "Did you have a good meal yesterday?"
    He blinked rapidly, unsure, off-guard. "I went over to Harley to see my sister. Ate too much turkey, as usual."
    "And now you're going into action. What action? The only