Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel) Read Online Free Page B

fast.
    I took Max’s arm and we turned away from the blazing remains of Yee & Sons Trading Company. Followed by Lucky and Nelli, we headed back toward Canal Street. We could probably hail a cab there, despite how crowded it was around here today . . . but could we find a taxi that would let Nelli come with us? She was an inconveniently
large
animal.
    I remembered that Max had recently found a pet transport service that he used when going places with Nelli that weren’t within walking distance of his home in Greenwich Village. I was about to ask him for the phone number, or at least the name, when my cell phone rang, startling me.
    As a cruelly cold wind swept down the street, I pulled off a glove and reached into my pocket, clumsily answering the phone without bothering to see who the caller was.
    “Esther Diamond,” I said wearily, realizing how ready I was to get out of the cold. It had been a long, busy, and very fraught day—and now darkness was descending.
    “Hi, it’s me.” In response to my blank silence, the caller added, “John.”
    “Oh! John.” I smiled for a moment, then asked with concern, “How are you feeling?”
    “Pretty freaked out.”
    “Well, yeah,” I said sympathetically. “I can only imagine. It
must
be freaky to see someone you’ve known your whole life suddenly point a gun at you with murder in her eyes.”
    “It’s John?” Lucky asked me. “How is he?”
    “Freaked out,” I said, putting my hand over the phone for a moment. “See if you can find a cab that’ll take us.”
    Lucky grunted skeptically but started looking around.
    “Oh . . . yeah, I guess I’m still pretty freaked out about Susan,” John said, sounding distracted. “I don’t even know why she was trying to kill me. Some cop was just here asking—”
    “Cop?” I repeated alertly. “What cop?”
    “—and, well, I don’t think he believed me when I said I have no idea
why.
Except that she seemed pretty crazy all of a sudden.”
    “Was it Lopez?” I asked. “The detective I was talking to at the scene?”
    Hearing that name, Lucky grumbled, “What’s Wonder Boy up to now?”
    He was a little irritated with Lopez, who’d broken open a big case against the Gambello crime family a few weeks ago and was keeping busy lately by arresting a bunch of Lucky’s associates.
    “I mean,
really
crazy,” said John. “Susan was like a rabid animal or something today . . .” I could hear him draw in a sharp breath as a new thought occurred to him. “I wonder if Ted’s all right? I mean . . . do we know if Susan targeted anyone else?”
    That was a complicated subject, so I settled for saying that Ted was unhurt, and Susan hadn’t shot at anyone else. I started to tell John about the fire that was consuming the store, but before I uttered more than a syllable, he interrupted me to say that he hadn’t called to talk about Susan or Ted.
    “No?” I said absently, pointing out an approaching cab to Lucky while deciding how to phrase the news about the fire.
    “Oh,”
John said. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t call about that, either, Esther. Not right now.”
    Lucky tried to wave down the cab, but it roared right past us. Perhaps the driver had noticed our soot-covered friend and our pony-sized dog.
    “What’s not right now?” I asked.
    “Our date.”
    I blinked. “Huh?”
    “I mean, I
am
going to ask you out. Obviously. Like we talked about today.”
    We did? I blinked again. I had no memory of talking about it.
    He continued, “Just not right now . . . Well, unless you
want
it to be right now?”
    “Um . . .” I frowned, caught off guard.
    John was asking me out on a date? And he thought we had talked about this?
    I tried to remember what he’d said to me in the chaos after Susan was arrested. Something about thanking me, calling me, dinner . . .
    Oh.
    I realized, not for the first time, that I can be such an idiot sometimes.
    I liked John. A lot, in fact. But I hadn’t