Cry for the Strangers Read Free Page B

elements.
    They drove down a slight incline into the heart of Clark’s Harbor. It was little more than a village. Therewas a side street running perpendicular to the highway, and Brad made a right turn onto it. The incline steepened and they dropped quickly into the center of the village. The street ended at a wharf. Brad brought the car to a stop and he and Elaine looked curiously around.
    “It looks like something out of New England,” Elaine said softly, echoing Brad’s thought. “I love it.”
    And it did look like a picture-postcard New England town. The buildings that clustered along the waterfront were all of a type: neat clapboards, brightly painted, with manicured gardens flowering gaily in the spring air. Set apart, grandly aloof from the rest, was an old Victorian building, its lawn and garden neatly bounded by a white picket fence. A hand-lettered sign proclaimed it the Harbor Inn.
    There were several people on the streets, enough so the town seemed busy but not frantic. One or two glanced at the Randalls’ car, but with no particular interest. No one stopped to stare; no one gestured or commented. Brad frowned slightly, feeling a strange lack of curiosity in the people who had glanced at them so disinterestedly. Always sensitive to her husband, Elaine looked quickly at him, concern clouding her face.
    “Is something wrong?” she asked.
    “I don’t know,” Brad said. Then he grinned at her. “What do you say we get something to eat?”
    Rebecca Palmer had noticed the strange car passing by as she was about to go into Blake’s Dry Goods, but she was preoccupied with other things. Right nowshe was more concerned with her shopping than with who might have arrived in Clark’s Harbor. The dark green Volvo had seemed somehow familiar, though. Wishful thinking; she pushed it out of her mind.
    She pulled a cart from the row that stood waiting just inside the front door and began wheeling it slowly through the aisles, stopping to look at a display of china that struck her as being in particularly bad taste, even for dime-store dinnerware. Shaking her head sadly at the garish pink and blue pansies that paraded helplessly around the perimeter of the plates, she moved on, picking up an item here and there and depositing it in the basket of the cart.
    The crash came as she was pausing in front of a rack of inexpensive dresses. She whirled around and saw George Blake hurrying toward the china display. Satisfied that the accident had had nothing to do with her, Rebecca turned back to the rack and continued her search for a dress that would set off her almost ethereal prettiness. Rebecca had a fragile look to her, and it was difficult for her to find clothing that didn’t overwhelm her. She was about to give up her search when she heard Mr. Blake behind her.
    “You’re going to have to pay for that stuff.” His voice was gruff, as if he was expecting to be contradicted. Rebecca turned and looked shyly at him.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “The china,” Blake said accusingly. “You’re going to have to pay for the things you broke.”
    “But I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Rebecca explained. “I was standing right here, looking at the dresses.”
    “I saw you looking at the china,” Blake said evenly.
    Rebecca frowned unhappily. “But that was five or ten minutes ago. And I didn’t even touch it.”
    Blake’s face darkened, and Rebecca almost recoiled from the man’s unconcealed hostility.
    “Don’t lie to me, Mrs. Palmer. You must have knocked the stack over. There isn’t anybody here but you and me.”
    Rebecca glanced quickly around and saw that. he was right Except for her and the proprietor, the store was empty.
    “But I didn’t have anything to do with it,” she insisted helplessly. “I told you, I wasn’t anywhere near that table.”
    Blake just stared at her.
    “Don’t know why you want to say something like that,” he said finally. “Ever since you and your family got