The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters [40]
“It feels cracked,” said Jean thickly. She opened her eyes cautiously. It wasn’t as bad this time. Jacqueline’s head and shoulders cast a shadow over her face. “What happened?”
Jacqueline sat down on the edge of the bed. She was wearing a thin blue negligee, sleeveless and long, belted in around her waist, and her hair was loose, flowing down her back. She looked rather lovely—except for her face. It was colorless and hard, with lines in it Jean had never noticed before. The green eyes were slitted, like a cat’s, and dull, without the gleam of humor that normally brightened them.
“What happened?” Jean repeated.
Jacqueline lit a cigarette.
“Do you remember anything?”
“We were playing hide and seek; Ted was ‘it.’ I remember, yes—I was in the dark part, watching Ted, and then…that’s all.” She looked helplessly at Jacqueline. “I don’t remember anything else. What hit me?”
Jacqueline blew out a neat smoke ring and contemplated it critically.
“Apparently a chunk of that stone coping came loose and landed square on your head.”
“But how—”
“You weren’t hanging on to it—trying to pull yourself out of the pool?”
“I don’t think so. I can’t remember. I feel so awful….”
“I imagine you do. José pumped a couple of gallons of water out of you.”
“José?”
“Mmmm. I gather the rest of you kid him when he tells you what a good swimmer he is. I couldn’t swear to that, but he’s an expert at resuscitation. And fast. If he hadn’t been…”
She sat half turned away, smoking with quick, nervous puffs. Jean stared at her, conscious of an odd sensation in her stomach which had nothing to do with the water she had swallowed.
“I almost died,” she said in a small voice. “Didn’t I?”
Jacqueline swung around to face her, and Jean saw that the hand holding the cigarette was shaking.
“Yes, and you had a lot of nerve almost doing it in my pool. I’m too old for that sort of thing. It takes too much out of me.”
“I’m sorry,” Jean said meekly.
Jacqueline made a wild gesture of disgust, and then they both laughed—not hilariously, but they laughed. Jacqueline stood up and said, in a calmer voice,
“I’d better reassure the death watch. They’ve worn a hole in the rug pacing, and they’re getting on my nerves.”
“Is everybody still here?”
“No, just Ted and José. The two,” Jacqueline mused, “with the greatest degree of social conscience? Anyhow, they insisted on staying, and I was glad to have the moral support. Ann wanted to stay, but she was a shaking wreck, so Andy took her home. And somehow or other Dana convinced Sam Scoville that her hand needed holding, so they went off together.”
“I might have known.”
“Sam was very touched at her affectionate nature,” Jacqueline said drily.
“And Michael?”
“He just…left. As soon as we were sure you were going to be all right.”
She went out, leaving the door open. Jean heard the murmur of voices, and the sound of the elevator coming up. When it had descended again, with her friends, Jacqueline came back.
“Could you eat anything, or does the idea repel you?”
“I could drink something. My throat hurts.”
“I’ll see what I can find.”
She went out, and Jean dragged her pillows together and sat up. She felt fairly good, except for the headache. Experimentally she wriggled one toe, and watched it move with a new interest. How beautiful it was to be able to wriggle a toe—to move all the muscles of her body and feel them respond—to sense her breath moving in and out, and the pumping of her heart.
The sound of the elevator distracted her from these pensive thoughts, and instinctively she stiffened. She made herself relax; it was ridiculous to be so nervous. There were other apartments in the building, after all.
But the elevator stopped at their floor and the door buzzer sounded. Jacqueline’s footsteps approached the door. Instead of opening it, she called out, “Who is it?”
Jean didn’t hear the reply, but evidently Jacqueline was satisfied; the door opened and a murmured colloquy followed. Footsteps tapped down the uncarpeted hall.
“Michael,” Jean said.
He stood in the doorway staring