Read Testament for Free Online Page B

your eyes changed.”
    “All I heard was breathing.”
    “This is my life and my family we’re talking about, and it isn’t your right to hold back on me. Tell me what the hell it was that bothered you.”
    Again a pause. “I can’t be sure. That’s why I listened so long. It was just this quiet gentle breathing. But there was an extra tone in it that I didn’t catch at first… I’m still not sure I’m onto it right. But it sounded like a woman.”
     

13
     
    The doctor had been wrong: Claire didn’t wake up at six as he had said. He pulled up a chair by the bed and sat and looked at her for a long time in the pale light from the closed drapes. She was breathing but that was it, and she didn’t wake at seven either. The light got paler outside through the drapes, and if she didn’t wake by seven-thirty, he was going to phone the doctor.
    “Daddy, I’m hungry,” Sarah said in the open bedroom doorway. She had been in her room for the last two hours, doing nothing. Once she had asked him to play a game with her, but he had no heart, and she had gone on doing nothing. He thought of her sitting on her bed, staring at the floor. Little girls weren’t made to have that much patience.
    “I am a bit too, I guess,” he said. “Hungry. At least I suppose that I should try and pretend that I’m hungry. But I can’t go down and make something for us. Mommy might wake up while I’m gone.”
    If she wakes up, he thought. She’ll wake up. Sure she will.
    But what can you fix to eat anyway? What in the house do you trust? Something on the back shelf in a can. He thought of soup—split pea with ham—and his mouth turned sour.
    “Why?” Sarah remained in the open doorway, her head barely even with the light switch.
    Might as well come out with it. “Sweetheart, I’m going to tell you something that’s hard to understand. There’s a man who thinks your father did something bad to him, and now some friends of his are out to hurt me. They want to hurt you and Mommy too. They’ve already done that to Ethan and Samantha.”
    “Killed them?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “I just told you.”
    “No, why does the man think you did something bad to him?”
    “I wrote some words about him that he didn’t like.”
    “Did you have to?”
    “I once thought I did. Now—” Now you’re not sure, but you damn well had better be. If it cost you Ethan and maybe everybody else, it damn well had better have been worthwhile.
    But it wasn’t.
    Claire turned, breathed hard and muttered, “I want my baby.” Then she was motionless again. After several moments, he realized he wasn’t moving either. He tried to relax but couldn’t. His shoulders were so tense they were aching.
    When he looked, Sarah wasn’t in the doorway any more.
    Then she was back.
    “There’s a man downstairs by the phone,” she said, puzzled.
    The detective sent here to guard them. That made him angry. “Did you go down when I told you not to?”
    Her face lost its composure. “Just a little.”
    “You’d better get in your room and stay there.”
    He was sorry as soon as he said it. Sarah’s face drooped worse and she looked again as if she were going to cry and he wanted to say he was sorry. But he had to make her realize this was serious. He had to make her obey, and keep on obeying. So he just stared at her and said, “Go on. You heard me. Get to your room.” She turned, looking lonely at him, and went reluctantly away.
    The room paled into darkness. He sat unseeing and listened to Claire turning restlessly, muttering, breathing hard, and at last he couldn’t bear it anymore. He had to do something, went over and slid back the drapes and looked out at the night. The streetlight wasn’t working. That bothered him. He could not recall the last time it was out. A match flared in a car parked out there. He tensed even more, stepped instinctively to the side of the window. Then the spot of flame was gone, and he dimly recognized the shape