joined Johnny on the other side of Woods. The girl had been laughing and talking a moment before, red hair tossing vivid fire around the pretty, pointed face. It changed as Cliff Somers neared the piano. There was a beseeching air about him as he said, “Hello, Kit.”
Kit Blaketon stared back at him stonily. “ ’Lo, Cliff.”
It was the merest scrap of a greeting, indifferent, curt, uninterested. She turned back to the song writer, threw an arm around his shoulders.
“Go on, Harry,” she urged, “don’t stop playing.”
Woods looked up at her with a grin. “All right, baby, what’ll you have?”
Kit Blaketon’s voice, clear, metallic, rode the room as she answered, “Play ‘Get out of Town,’ darling. That’s the only tune I can think of at the moment.”
Cristie watched the good-looking young politician flush and pale. How cruel girls could be when they wanted to! Then she stopped thinking about the curious incident.
Steven was crossing the room. Beside her he said in a low voice, “I want to talk to you, Cristie.” He looked different. There was an air of purpose about him somehow.
She said, “My room, down the hall.”
She was standing at one of the tall windows beyond her drawing board when Steven joined her. He paused just inside the door, his tall broad-shouldered figure, his dark head, outlined against the white paneling. He was thinner and older but the light was back in his face, the light Sara had almost succeeded in crushing out.
“Cristie!” His voice had a ring to it.
“Yes, Steven.” Her own was none too steady, her own small dark head was lifted. She was shaking inwardly. “You—wanted me for something?”
Steven was holding a cigarette in his lean brown fingers. He ground it out in an ash tray. He said, “That’s just it. Yes, Cristie. I do want you. It’s time now. All the other is gone. It’s finished, done with, over.”
Cristie’s hands were clasped in front of her. Her fingers tightened. The dark pool at the bottom of her mind stirred a little. Was anything ever over completely? Did the past ever really bury its dead? Or were they just tucked away conveniently out of sight? She turned to the window, looked out into the clear, star-spangled autumn night, said on an uneven breath, “Oh, Steven, Steven—I don’t know. Can we ever . . .?”
Steven was close to her. He put strong gentle hands on her shoulders, swung her round until she faced him. His eyes dove deeply into hers. She couldn’t get away—realized, a thin glow of rapture beginning to pervade her, that she didn’t want to.
Steven continued, his eyes holding hers, “Yes, Cristie. We can. We can and we will.”
The core of darkness within her refused to dissipate, continued to send out creeping tentacles. “Are you sure, Steven?” she whispered.
Steven held her away. She looked at the dancing specks in his steel-bright eyes. The irises were ringed with black.
He said steadily, “Yes, Cristie, I’m sure. I let you go once. I’m not going to let you go again. Cristie, Cristie.” His grip tightened. “Don’t you understand? I love you. We have a right to each other. And by guess or by God, anyone who tries to stop us now—well, it’s going to be just too bad. Cristie, tell me what I want to hear, tell me, darling, tell me!”
Cristie didn’t answer at once. She was deeply moved. But that inner weight was difficult to throw off. Steven’s hands fell from her shoulders. His eyes searched the small white face she lifted to his. Her lips parted. Her lashes opened wide and glory blossomed in the violet eyes set at a tilt under the delicate brows.
“Steven,” she cried in a low radiant voice. “Oh, Steven, Steven.”
Her arms were around his neck. He strained her to him. Their lips met and the room, the penthouse, the whole sorry world were left behind.
They clung passionately to that moment, a moment in which they were in another atmosphere beyond time and beyond space with only themselves and a thin strain of music that was Harry Woods in the distant living room playing, magically, Begin the Beguine.
To live it again is past all endeavor Except when the tune clutches my heart; Yet there we are, swearing to love forever, And promising never, never to part.
Cristie withdrew her lips from Steven’s, burrowed her forehead in the hollow of his shoulder. “Never, Steven,” she murmured. “Never?”
Drawing her closer, Steven said, “Never, darling, never. Sara’s gone. Don’t worry about her any more. You mustn’t. It isn’t necessary. I know things about Sara that . . . Listen, sweet, on the night Sara died . . .”
Something warned Cristie. She realized afterward that it was the music. It had become imperceptibly louder. She raised her head. Steven had his back to the door. His bulk obscured her view. She twisted sideways, looked past him.
The door leading into the hall was settling noiselessly into its frame.
Someone standing outside in the corridor had opened and closed the door a moment earlier. Steven had been speaking of Sara and the night of Sara’s death. . . . The fear was back in Cristie, a new fear that added itself to the other and thrust her down again into swirling eddies of uncertainty and terror.
That night Christopher McKee returned to New York from Rio de Janeiro. He was back at his desk in the Homicide Squad before morning. It wasn’t until five o’clock on the following afternoon that he got the letter, a letter addressed to the Commissioner and sent up by messenger from Headquarters. The Inspector read it once and then again. He pressed the buzzer on his desk. When the door opened and Lieutenant Sheerer stuck in his head, McKee said without looking up from the sheet of paper he held in his hand:
“Get me the file on the drowning of Sara Hazard of 66 Franklin Place on August twenty-fifth.”
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