Cry in the Night by Carolyn G. Hart Page A

Did you hear the scream?”
    She shook her head.
    I turned again to Tony. “It seems clear someone gained entrance to the house tonight. Surely you want the police to come.”
    Tony shook his head. “That wouldn’t be helpful.”
    I wanted to demand why an investigation wasn’t going to be made. I knew he wouldn’t answer. And, after all, I was a guest. This was not my house. But it was my room that had been entered.
    “I’ll pick up the doll.” There was an avid gleam in Juan’s eyes.
    Tony reached the pieces first and scooped them up.
    The housekeeper came, pulling a robe around her.
    Tony questioned her sharply in Spanish. I had no idea what he asked, but she made a vigorous denial, her voice firm.
    Señor Ortega chimed in, his face anxious.
    Maria looked from Tony to his father and replied vehemently.
    Whatever the conversation between Maria, Tony, and Señor Ortega, it appeared to reassure Gerda. She watched her husband and stepson, her gaze swinging from one to the other. Some color seeped back into her face.
    Obviously everyone knew something that I didn’t know, and closed me out.
    Juan finally said something to me. “You are very lucky,” he said softly. His brown eyes glistened with excitement and something more, a kind of expectancy.
    “Lucky?”
    Everyone turned to watch Juan and me.
    He liked being the center of attention. But there was more than a bad boy’s tendency to show off, to shock. It was more frightening than that. “You were in the same room with Death tonight, death of a doll,” Juan said softly, so softly. “You were so close, you might have reached out and touched him.”
    They all came down on him at once, his father, Tony, Gerda. Don Ortega’s command was abrupt. “Bastante.” Tony’s eyes blazed. “Stop the nonsense, Juan.”
    Gerda’s voice was high. “Don’t talk about death.”
    Juan fell silent with a little shrug, but the smile and the eagerness never left his eyes.
    Juan’s response wasn’t normal, but were his words any stranger than the way the rest of the family was acting? No one had reacted as I would have expected.
    Why weren’t the police called? Who would throw a dismembered doll onto the floor and scream? Why had it happened in my room? Who had unplugged my lamp? Why had Tony’s face suddenly become secretive, inward, withdrawn?
    As suddenly as everyone had gathered, they dispersed. Tony did have the decency to pause a moment after the exodus and ask, “Sheila, would you like to move to another room? I can have Maria see to it quite easily.”
    I said briskly, “No, it’s all right, Tony.”
    “If you’re sure.”
    “Yes.”
    He turned to leave.
    I said quickly, “Tony, please, who would do a thing like that? Why?”
    I could not have felt more shut away if he had physically closed the door between us. His face was utterly expressionless. “I have no idea, Sheila, none at all.”
    He was lying.
    When he was gone and I was alone in the room, I wedged a straight chair beneath the door handle. I plugged the lamp in and this time light shone when I pulled the chain. I was glad to know light was near. As for the chair at the door, I don’t suppose it would have stopped anyone who really wanted in, but the barrier gave me a sense of security.
    Was it any wonder that I couldn’t sleep? I lay rigid on that comfortable mattress and stared sightlessly into darkness.
    Tony Ortega had reached out to me until he saw that sharp-edged obsidian ax.
    I turned restlessly.
    What difference should it make how the doll was cut apart? Whether it was a kitchen knife or a machete or a hand-shaped stone weapon? What possible difference?
    I bunched up my pillow and buried my face in it. I couldn’t bury my thoughts.
    Finally I gave up trying to sleep and got up and crossed the room to the window. I rested my head against the cool glass and stared down into the garden, which lay, cold and stark, in the pale moonlight. It looked just as it had last night, the