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Page 266
not. Then I'm going to tell your aunt that I'm quitting. I won't sit around and wait till a murder happens. If I can't stop it, at least I won't condone it."
She turned and began to run toward the house. Behind her she heard Peter call, "Linda!" in a furious voice, and then heard the door of the gazebo slam. As angry as Linda was, she had no intention of exposing Mrs. Bates to a violent scene between her and Peter, and she was afraid he was now enraged enough not to care about anything. She veered from the direct path to the verandah and made for the garden gate. As she opened it, the sitting room door opened, the stream of light showing the general shepherding Mrs. Sotheby out onto the west verandah. A vagrant breeze pulled the door from the general's hand and it slammed.
Linda slipped through the gate and closed it silently behind her. She started up the steep path, walking carefully so that she would make no noise, aware that her black skirt and dark raincoat would make her almost invisible if she kept to the shadows. She felt an urgent need to be alone. Something in Peter's exasperated tone as he called her a damn fool had increased her anger because it started a completely new and very unpleasant train of thought.
She heard Peter call her name again, but she did not reply, taking the inner path, away from the cliff edge, until she came to the rock she had discovered when she was with Rose-Anne that morning. She stepped behind it. She didn't want

 
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