All Fall Down Read Online Free

they finally reached the open expanse of the lawn, Blaine almost wept with relief.
    By the time they staggered through the French doors, Blaine felt as if knives were slashing her chest. Too much strain after just recovering from pneumonia, she thought, fighting to keep both Robin and Cait from noticing her pain. The girl’s sobbing had subsided to intermittent whimpering, and she wasn’t leaning so heavily on Blaine as before.
    When they entered the living room, Robin headed for the couch, but Blaine steered her down the long hall, through her bedroom to the bathroom. While Robin stood by limply, Blaine got a towel and a washcloth from the linen closet and turned on the cold water. “I want you to wash your face, then go lie down for a few minutes. You look like you’re going to faint.” She was relieved when without argument Robin bent over the sink. As she splashed water on her face, Blaine walked back to the living room and sank down on the couch, forcing herself to take slow, spaced breaths until the pain in her chest began to dull.
    “Are you all right?” Cait asked, stopping her pacing through the living room long enough to hover over Blaine.
    “I’m okay. Just breathless.”
    “I’ll get you some water.”
    “Yes, please.” Blaine reached for the telephone. “I have to call the police.”
    “Do you want me to do it?”
    “No,” Blaine said, recalling how Cait had a tendency to garble information when she was nervous. “Just get the water. I’ll take care of it.”
    A deputy in the county sheriff’s office answered.
    “This is Mrs. Avery. There’s a body in my creek. You have to send someone,” she blurted, thinking she sounded ludicrously abrupt. Maybe Cait should have made the call after all.
    There was a pause before a young man said, “Just slow down, ma’am. Now, this is who? ”
    “It’s Blaine Avery. Martin Avery’s wife, out on Prescott Road.”
    “Oh. Mrs. Avery.” Blaine recognized the voice of a young deputy named Clarke whom she’d met during the investigation of Martin’s death. He sounded excited. “Would you repeat that information, please?”
    Blaine forced herself to speak more slowly. “There is a body on my property. In the creek. I believe it’s Rosalind Van Zandt.”
    “Just a minute, ma’am.” Abruptly the receiver made a thunking sound in her ear, and she heard him say loudly, “It’s Blaine Avery on the phone. Says she found a body! Claims it’s Rosalind Van Zandt!”
    In a moment a deep, calm male voice came on the line. “This is Quint.” Blaine stiffened. Logan Quint, the sheriff. They’d met in grade school, dated as teenagers, and she had thought of him as her friend until that awful day in late May when he’d come to the house after she arrived home to find Martin dead. “What’s this about a body?”
    “Robin, Cait, and I were walking my dog in the woods behind the house when we discovered a body in the creek. Or rather, the dog did.” Her control was breaking. She caught her breath and added weakly, “I think it’s been there a while.”
    She expected a barrage of questions, but mercifully Logan said, “I’ll be right out.”
    Blaine felt a sob rising. “Please hurry.”
    “I will. In the meantime, Blaine, I want you to stay in your house. Don’t go back in those woods.”
    2
    The sun had disappeared and only a faint rose blush hung above the trees as Logan Quint and Chief Deputy Abel Stroud sped along Prescott Road toward the Avery house five miles out of town.
    “Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” Stroud commented. “First Martin Avery, now the Van Zandt girl, if it really is her.”
    “She was reported missing two hours ago, and Robin Avery was one of her closest friends,” Logan said. “Blaine said Robin was with her when she found the body, so if Robin says it’s Rosalind, I think we can be pretty sure it is.”
    “I just don’t understand why you didn’t call me when she was reported missin’.”
    “Like I said, I’ve