Read Time After Time for Free Online

versions: horrendous and
murderous. Obviously she should have walked, but old habits died
hard. The deep Fifth Ward, where she'd been brought up, was just a
few blocks too far from downtown to be quickly walkable. Then,
after she married, she and her husband had rented a little ranch
house in Middletown, farther up the island, because it was close to
both their jobs at Raytheon. But now she had a house smack-dab in
the middle of everything. Walking was the only way to
go.
    Eventually Jack Eastman's
exquisite manor house loomed ahead. With its steeply pitched roofs,
multiple chimneys, intricate shingles, and half-timbered stucco,
the house was one of the finest and biggest Queen Annes in a town
that overflowed with them. Liz could still remember pedaling down
Bellevue Avenue on her way to the beach when she was a child,
liking the Queen Annes more than any of the French chateaus,
Italian villas, or granite castles that lined the famous avenue.
Something about the brooding Gothic lines of the shingled English
style appealed to her.
    And scared her, of course,
which she loved.
    Liz turned off Bellevue
Avenue toward her house and then, entirely on impulse, she pulled
up in front of the Eastman mansion. She had a question for Jack
Eastman. She could have asked it by phone; but she had changed into
a stylish skirt and a new knit top, and she wanted to prove that
she didn't always look like something the cat dragged in.
    Scanning her image in the
rearview mirror of her minivan, Liz poked her thick blunt-cut hair
back into place, then decided that maybe she needed a bit more
lipstick.
    And a little
mascara.
    And a touch of eye
shadow.
    Whatever it takes to make
him see that I'm ... I'm — what? Professional?
Hardly. A professional would have called first before dropping by.
She strode up to the front door, trying not to listen to the little
voice running around madly inside her head screaming, "You idiot!
You just want to show him you can look pretty! You
idiot!"
    But it was too late for
second thoughts. Ignoring the doorbell above the discreet brass
nameplate engraved with the name "East Gate," she lifted the heavy
dolphin doorknocker and brought it down in three sharp
thumps.
    Netta answered the door
immediately, as if she'd been hovering on the other side. Startled,
Liz said, "Oh, hello, Netta. Is Mr. Eastman in? I wanted to ask him
about the cake and, if it was convenient, to look around the—
"
    She was interrupted by the
very gentleman in question, whose outraged voice thundered from
behind a set of closed paneled doors off the massive,
portrait-lined entrance hall, itself as big as the whole first
floor of Liz's toy cottage.
    "What the hell do you think you're
up to, inviting those slimeballs on the property!" she heard him
shout.
    The hair on Liz's arms
stood on end as she murmured, "This may not be the right time
—"
    "Dear, it surely isn't,"
the housekeeper said uneasily. Liz heard another man's voice,
obviously attempting to calm Eastman down, and then Eastman again,
interrupting him.
    "You want to hang out with
those sewer rats, go ahead — but do it in their sewer, not the
shipyard! If I see them there again, I'll run them off
myself!"
    Again the other voice,
soothing and yet urgent.
    Then Eastman's voice,
hoarse with rage: "Are you crazy? You mess with them, you'll end up in jail! You
think they're along for the ride? They want the land, you bloody old fool! Not the
business!"
    Then the other voice, also
angry now.
    And then Eastman again,
cutting him off. "They'll do whatever they have to do to get it!
You bloody, bloody old fool!"
    Then the door opening.
Then the door slamming.
    And there he was, face to
face with Liz for the second time that day, except, of course, that
now she looked pretty.
    "Mr. — Mr. Eastman," she
said piteously. "This may seem like a trivial question ... but I
wanted to know ... chocolate cake?" she asked in a faltering voice.
"Or white?"
    Still flushed with fury,
he stared blankly at her