A Vacation to Kill For by Eunice Mays Boyd

Author:Eunice Mays Boyd [Eunice Mays Boyd with Elizabeth Reed Aden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Level Best Books
Published: 2023-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Olive was already out of bed and dressed when Allegra woke the next morning.

“What time is it?” Allegra asked sleepily. “I must have overslept.”

“It’s only eight o’clock,” Olive said. “I woke up early and decided to write Foster McKane. Would it be awfully inconvenient for you to have your bath and breakfast later and take this to the post office? It’s instructions he should have right away.”

For Olive, this was almost saying please. And she almost gave an explanation, too. In any event, and even if it hadn’t been a letter to her lawyer, Allegra couldn’t say no.

She got up and dressed, feeling she was stumbling around with her eyes shut. These leisurely breakfasts in bed had spoiled her.

On her way through the narrow streets to the post office, Allegra pressed both shoulders against the wall to get out of the way of a police car tearing in the direction she had come from, its siren going full blast.

She mailed Olive’s letter and hurried back. Since she was fully dressed, Allegra decided she might as well have breakfast in the dining room. Perhaps Olive, who had also dressed early, would like to join her. If so, Olive would have to be told before she ordered breakfast for two in their room.

All the old wives’ tales about a brisk morning’s walk whetting one’s appetite were only too true. Today Allegra would love to have an English breakfast with a boiled egg and a rasher of bacon instead of the continental croissants and brioches. Not that they weren’t served in England. You ate what you paid for—or, in this case, what Olive paid for.

In the last block, Allegra saw the back end of an automobile sticking out beyond the tunnel-like walls. It had something funny on top… why, it looked like the police car she had spied on her way to the post office! She quickened her already hurrying steps. The police car had stopped behind the Cité Hotel. Allegra hurried around the corner to see what was going on. Four or five men in uniform, porters, chambermaids, and kitchen staff from the hotel were all clustered about the back door and a row of oversize garbage cans. What in the world…?

Hunger forgotten, Allegra joined the peering knot, intent on the can where the uniformed men were thickest. One of them stepped back and she caught a glimpse of a woman’s shoulder in a plaid jacket—crossing lines of red, yellow, green, brown… my God, Olive! Olive, who had been dressed and could have gone out while Allegra was at the post office. What was she wearing this morning? But she couldn’t have been wearing that suit, Allegra thought. That was the one she’d wrecked at Nîmes, the one she gave to the chambermaid…

Another policeman moved and Allegra got a glimpse of light brown hair the color of Olive’s. Her heart bumped again. But it couldn’t be—it couldn’t. A glimpse of a twisted neck, a three-quarter face… A face she’d never seen before.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.