A Match Made for Murder Iona Whishaw (pride and prejudice read .TXT) 📖

Lane pulled up a chair as quietly as she could and gently took her right hand. “Priscilla? It’s Lane Winslow.”

Priscilla opened her one undamaged eye and turned her head slightly, with a groan. “They’ve doped me up. Why are you here? I told them not to call you unless it was an emergency.”

“Dearest Priscilla, if this is not an emergency, I don’t know what is. What happened?”

Closing her eyes, Priscilla was silent for a moment. “I’ve lost the baby, I know it. I can feel it gone. They haven’t told me, but I know.”

Lane felt herself blanche. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were pregnant.” Lane paused. “Nurse Yelland said you fell down the stairs.”

Priscilla attempted a smile. “Yes. My own mother used to ‘fall down stairs.’ Isn’t it ironic? It’s hereditary, it seems.”

“Paul did this.”

“Apparently he didn’t like me being pregnant. He didn’t marry me so I could ruin myself with brats.”

Lane sat holding Priscilla’s hand, her mind in turmoil. There must be laws against this sort of thing, she thought desperately. After all, she had contact with a law firm now; maybe Priscilla could get lawyer.

“You just have to think about getting better, now,” she said. “Do you have someone you can stay with?”

Priscilla attempted a sarcastic laugh and groaned instead. “Paul is the assistant chief of police. Where would I be safe?” She attempted to adjust her body and then gave it up, grimacing at the pain. “The drugs seem to just make me dozy without actually dealing with the sore bits.”

“Shall I get the nurse?” Lane asked.

“Don’t bother.” She closed her eyes, and Lane wondered if she’d drifted off to sleep, but then her eye opened again. “He’s always terribly sorry.” Priscilla’s voice began to drag with the effect of the drugs.

Lane pressed Priscilla’s hand, wanting to stroke her bruised forehead. “Get some rest now. I’ll come tomorrow.”

Priscilla managed to turn her head slightly to look at her. “I dream sometimes of stealing that beastly car and driving to Phoenix and catching a plane. But . . . assistant chief of police . . .”

“Ma’am,” Nurse Yelland put her head in the door.

“Yes, of course,” Lane said. Outside she said to the nurse, “I’ll come back tomorrow. Is there anything I should bring?”

“Some hope? She’ll be here for a week, easy. No doubt we’ll patch her up and send her home.”

Lane started toward the stairs and then stopped. “Has she been here before?”

Yelland shook her head. “Nope. But I bet she should have. There are some older bruises on her.” She approached Lane with contained fury. “He kicked her until she lost that baby. If you can do anything to get her out of there . . . and before you ask, I know who her husband is. A so-called rising star in the force. An anti-corruption crusader. Doesn’t that beat all? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be sharing this, but it makes me absolutely livid to see this sort of thing.”

Darling and Lane sat in bed holding hands. “Why doesn’t she leave?” Lane asked. “I don’t understand it.”

“Perhaps he controls the money. I think the fact you are the only person she could call suggests he controls who she sees. She must have no friends she can trust. And I expect she’s afraid. I wonder if that law firm you contacted would be useful here?”

“That’s exactly what I thought,” Lane said.

He turned to her. “I’m sorry, Lane. He’s an absolute bastard. How did I never see that? I’m going to have to re-think everything I know about him.”

“I suppose men don’t talk about that sort of thing with each other. And he wasn’t married when you knew him.”

“No. He wasn’t. Now I think of it, he was a bit of a ‘lad,’ I suppose. Somewhat loose talk about the ladies, that sort of thing. I suspect I wasn’t comfortable with it, but it’s what a lot of men did . . . do. I don’t think I ever imagined he would be capable of something like this.”

“I have to do something,” Lane said.

Darling turned to look at her. God almighty, he thought, what now? But he turned out the light and pulled her close.

She lay awake long into the moonless night. Finally dozing, she woke with a start just past three, wondered at her wakefulness, and then remembered Priscilla. She lay staring into the dark, her innards in turmoil. Finally she rose, put on her cardigan and then her robe, and quietly opened the door to step outside.

Shivering at the cold, she closed the door quietly behind her and went into the empty garden. She marvelled at the darkness and the riot of stars above her. The canopy of the sky seemed close enough to touch. They whirled above her in a way that made her think of van Gogh. She went to the pool area and lay on a deck chair so she could look upward, already feeling the cold would not allow her to stay out long in little more than a silk nightdress.

It gives perspective, she thought. We are nothing in the face of this vastness, with our little problems and tiny short lives. But Priscilla’s problems were not little, and she had none of the advantage of perspective Lane had—only the claustrophobia of pain and closed doors. The idea came to her as she was getting up to hurry back to the room, driven by the cold. She would talk to Chela first thing in the morning.

The night shift officers were beginning to stretch tiredly and stack things on their desks when Martinez came in.

“Morning,” he said to Bevan, a young officer who had more than once wondered to Martinez why he had graduated at the top of his class to spend his nights flipping a pencil at his desk, waiting for the phone to ring.

“Sergeant. Pretty quiet last night,” Bevan said, “and no visits from the assistant chief, unlike a couple of nights ago.”

“Good. You