Shakespeares Christmas Page 0,36

in comfortable silence for a little while.

Varena had just asked me if I wanted some instant hot chocolate when we heard the sound of someone walking outside the cottage.

The scare we'd had that morning must have made us jumpy. Both of us raised our heads like deer hearing the sound of the hunter's boots. Peripherally, I saw Varena turn to me, but I shook my head slightly to make her keep silent.

Then someone kicked the front door.

Varena shrieked.

"Who is it?" I called, standing to one side of the door.

"Jack," he yelled. "Let me in!"

I caught my breath in a rattling gasp, frightened and furious at being so. I yanked the door open, ready to let him know how much I appreciated being jolted like that. The words died in my throat when I opened the door. Jack was carrying Meredith Osborn. She was covered in blood.

Behind me I heard Varena pick up the phone, punch in 911. She spoke tersely to whoever answered.

Jack was haggard with shock. Some of Meredith Osborn's blood was smeared on him. He was breathing raggedly. Though she was a small woman, he'd been carrying her as a dead weight.

Varena picked up a sheet she'd just folded and flung it over the couch in one movement, and Jack gladly laid the little woman down. When he'd deposited his burden he stood for a moment with his arms still curved. Then with a groan he straightened them, his shoulders moving unconsciously in an effort to relax strained muscles.

Varena was already on her knees beside the couch, her hands on her landlady's wrist. She was shaking her head.

"She's got a pulse, but it's ..." Varena shook her head again. "She's been lying outside." The dying woman's face was ice-white, and the cold was rolling off the tiny body, eddying through the warm room.

We heard the sound of the ambulance in the distance.

Meredith Osborn opened her eyes. They fixed on mine.

Someone had struck her across her face, and her lips were cracked, had bled. Underneath the blood, they were blue, to match the tinge of her fingernails.

Her mouth opened. "The children," she whispered.

"Don't worry," Varena said instantly. "They're fine."

Meredith Osborn turned her gaze from my face to Varena's. Her mouth moved again. She tried as hard as she could to tell Varena something.

Instead, she died.

Chapter Five

I held on to Jack. He held on to me. We'd seen people die - bad people, violent people, people who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This young woman, newly a mother, beaten and left in the freezing air, was something else again.

It was Varena who ran over to the Osborn house to see if the children were there, Varena who discovered that the house was empty and silent. And, twenty minutes later, it was Varena who saw the car with Emory Osborn, Eve, and the baby Jane pull into the driveway, to be met with the news that would change their lives forever.

Lanky Detective Brainerd was on duty again, or still on duty, and he eyed me dubiously, even after we explained what had happened.

"What were you doing here?" he asked Jack directly. "I don't believe you're from here, sir."

"No, sir, I'm not. I'm here to visit Lily, and I'm staying at the Delta Motel." Jack let go of me and stepped closer to Brainerd.

I kept my gaze on the floor. I didn't know if Jack was making a mistake or not, keeping his business in Bartley a secret.

"How'd you know Miss Bard was here?"

"Her car is here," Jack said.

It was true, we'd come in my car. Mother had taken Varena to the wedding shower, so I'd given her a ride from their place over to the cottage.

After her burst of energy, Varena was slumped in an armchair, staring into space.

"So you stopped here to see Miss Bard ...."

"And when I got out of the car, I thought I heard a noise from behind the big house," Jack said calmly. "So I thought I'd check it out before I alarmed Lily and Varena."

"You found Mrs. Osborn."

"Yes. She was lying between the back of the house and their garage."

"Did she speak to you?"

"No."

"She said nothing?"

"No. She didn't seem to know I'd picked her up."

"But she spoke when she was lying on the couch?"

"Yes," I said.

Jack and Detective Brainerd turned simultaneously.

"And what did she say?" the policeman asked.

"She said, 'The children.' "

"And that's all?"

"That's all."

Brainerd looked thoughtful, as well he might.

What had Meredith Osborn meant?