Too Black for Heaven Read Online Free

carried her nightgown into the bathroom.
    After showering and removing her make-up, she combed her hair and brushed her teeth. She slipped the nightgown over her head and scuffed back into the bedroom. The still heat of the summer night made even the film of silk unbearable. The gown smelled of gun oil. Dona stripped it off and stood looking at the ring Charles had given her.
    Because of her behavior tonight she really had no right to the ring. On impulse, she sat at the writing desk, took an envelope from the drawer and addressed it:
         Lieutenant Charles Mercer
            Detective Division
               Police Headquarters
                  1121 South State Street
                      Chicago, Illinois.
    She folded a sheet of paper around the ring, enclosed it in a second sheet for safety, and sealed the ring in the envelope. Then she laid it on the dresser.
    According to the lighted clock in the courthouse tower it was eighteen minutes after twelve. Most of the store fronts were dark. There were few cars and fewer pedestrians on the street.
    Her cheeks felt flushed. Despite the cold shower she’d taken, her body was beaded with perspiration. She hadn’t known such heat existed. There was something insidiously lush and evil about it.
    She wished she could cry, really cry. She hadn’t been able to cry since Estrella had told her. The future frightened her. Only one thing was real. That was her hate for the man who had done this to her. She looked from the night-filled square to the revolver on the dresser.
    In the morning she would go to her Blair Sterling. She would be calm and matter of fact about it, as Estrella had been. She would tell him who she was and why she had come to Blairville.
    Then she would pull the trigger of the revolver as many times as was necessary.

Chapter Four
    T HE NIGHT grew older and hotter. Breathing was a conscious effort. As Dona studied the dark square, a group of laughing young people emerged from the hotel cocktail lounge and got into a bright red Buick. Dona hoped the boy behind the wheel could drive better than he could walk.
    Watching them reminded her of the bottle of bourbon Jack Ames had insisted on buying. She suddenly wanted a drink. She wanted to stop thinking, for this one night, at least. She picked up the phone and called the desk.
    “Would you please send a pitcher of ice to 214?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” the night clerk said. “As soon as I kin locate Beau.”
    “Thank you.”
    Dona took a pastel negligee from her bag and laid it over a chair. Beau was an odd name for a bell boy. The bed lamp hurt her eyes. She switched it off and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting, swinging her feet in the narrow river of light escaping from the partly opened bathroom door.
    There were many firsts in a girl’s life. It was the first time she’d ever been deep South. It was the first time she’d ever been cheap.
    She poured a stiff drink into one of the water glasses on the dresser and attempted to drink it straight. The undiluted whiskey burned her throat. She added melted ice water from the pitcher and drank as she studied her reflection in the mirror. This constant looking in mirrors had to stop. No one could tell. Jack Ames was proof of that.
    “Hi, beautiful,” he’d said. Then he’d called her “sugar.”
    The diluted drink tasted good. Dona mixed a second one and carried it to the bed, where the ceiling fan stirred a faint breeze. She re-fluffed the crumpled pillow and sat trying not to think.
    The whiskey eased her hurt and rounded the sharp edges of her problem. She lifted the glass to her lips and was surprised to find it empty. She mixed a drink that would last and returned to the cool of the fan. The air from the blades stroked her flesh with a slow, almost sensuous deliberation that reminded her of Jack Ames. She wished she could stop thinking of Ames, but she couldn’t. He was too recent, too vital.
    She stretched her