Michael Malone - Weebly

leash that her cat had refused to wear, and having
attached it to the dog's collar, she opened the kitchen
door. With a single sharp bark, the shepherd lunged,
dragging her down the porch steps before she could
pull against him. A shadow, but a human one, seemed
to be running through the pine trees into Elizabeth
Circle, toward the back of Mrs. Blanchard Troyes's
house. It disappeared before she had seen it clearly.
Nor could she think who it might be out there at 1:00
A.M. Certainly not Evelyn Troyes, whom Prudence
envied for her European love affairs, and for her
daughter, and for the wealth that allowed her to take
trips into the bright carnival of Manhattan theater and
operas and fascinating artistic people, but whom
Prudence did not suspect of nocturnal assignations at
this stage of her life.
It must be, she thought, some young lover returning
home to Astor Heights, happy to walk miles in the starsparkling
grass, happy with the kiss still flush on his lips
and the future as infinite and shiny as stars.
"Never mind, Night," Miss Lattice sighed. "Let's go
back in." On her way up to bed, she picked up the new