Sleeping Beauty Read Online Free

Hampshire, Greenfield Manor.
    William Lennox, El Rancho (grandfather).
    Mrs. Sylvia Lennox, Seahorse Lane, Pacific Point (grandmother). Mr. and Mrs. Jack Lennox, Cliffside, Pacific Point (Laurel’s father and mother).
    Captain and Mrs. Benjamin Somerville, Bel-Air (her aunt and uncle).
    I tried to memorize the list.
    Russo was saying on the phone, “I didn’t have a fight with her. I didn’t see her tonight or today. I had nothing to do with this at all; you can take my word for it.” He set the phone downand came back to me. “You could talk to Joyce from here, I guess, but I’m not supposed to let anyone use this phone.”
    “I’d rather talk to her in person, anyway. I take it she hasn’t heard from Laurel?”
    Russo shook his head, his eyes staying on my face. “How is it you call her Laurel?”
    “That’s what you call her.”
    “But you said you didn’t know her hardly at all.” He was upset, in a quiet way.
    “I don’t.”
    “Then what makes you so interested? I’m not saying you don’t have a right. But I just don’t understand, if you hardly know her.”
    “I told you I feel a certain responsibility.”
    He hung his dark head. “So do I. I realize I made a mistake when she phoned tonight and wanted to come home. I should have told her to come ahead.”
    He was a man whose anger and suspicion easily turned inward on himself. His handsome face had a shut and disappointed look, as if he felt he had foreclosed his youth.
    “Has she run out before, Mr. Russo?”
    “We’ve been separated before, if that’s what you mean. And she was always the one that did the leaving.”
    “Has she had any drug trouble?”
    “Nothing serious.”
    “What about not so serious?”
    “She uses barbiturates quite a bit. She’s always had trouble sleeping, and calming down generally. But she never took an overdose.” He looked at the possibility with half-closed eyes, and couldn’t quite face it. “I think it’s just a bluff. She’s trying to scare me.”
    “She succeeded in scaring me. Did she say anything about suicide when she talked to you on the phone?”
    Russo didn’t answer right away, but the skull behind his thin-fleshed face became more prominent. “She said something.”
    “Can you remember exactly what she said?”
    He took in a deep breath. “She said if I ever wanted to see her again in her life that I should let her come home. And be there waiting for her. But I couldn’t do that, I had to get down here and—”
    I interrupted him. “In
her
life?”
    “That’s what she said. I didn’t take it too seriously at the time.”
    “I do. She’s pretty disturbed. But I still think she wants me to find her.”
    His head came up. “What makes you think that?”
    “She left the door of my medicine cabinet open. She wasn’t trying very hard to get away with those capsules—at least not all the way.” I picked up his list of names. “What about this family of hers? Bel-Air and El Rancho and Seahorse Lane are pretty expensive addresses.”
    Russo nodded solemnly. “They’re rich.” The droop of his shoulders added: And I’m poor.
    “Is her father the same Jack Lennox who owns the oil well that’s spilling?”
    “Her grandfather owns it. William Lennox. His company owns quite a few oil wells.”
    “Do you know him?”
    “I met him once. He invited me to a gathering at his home in El Rancho last year. Me and Laurel and the rest of the family. It broke up early, and I never did get to talk to him.”
    “Is Laurel close to her grandfather?”
    “She used to be, before he got a new woman. Why?”
    “I think this oil spill upset her pretty basically. She seems to feel very strongly for the birds.”
    “I know. It’s because we have no children.”
    “Did she say so?”
    “She didn’t have to say so. I wanted children, but she didn’t feel ready for motherhood. It was easier for her to care about the birds. I’m just as glad now that we don’t have children.”
    There was a