Diver Down (Mercy Watts Mysteries) Read Online Free

cases involving kids. Dad drank when he caught those.  
    “I can’t help you. Even if you knew for sure, it wouldn’t change anything,” I said softly.
    “I think it would,” said Urbani.  
    “I think this is your sister’s life. If she wants to be married to an asshole, that’s her business. Interference will just alienate her.”  
    “I need to help her.”  
    “You need to leave,” I said.  
    “I don’t give up.”  
    “Then it’s time you learn a new skill.”  
    I put on the one-piece and viewed myself through one squinted eye. Not bad. I’d buy it, if it covered my chest.  
    “Mercy,” said Sheila. “How’s it going?”  
    “Crappy. Why’d you let him back here?”  
    “Who?”  
    “That guy that was following me around the store.”  
    “He came back into the dressing room?” Sheila’s voice went squeaky. “Did he do anything to you?”  
    I opened the dressing room door and looked into Sheila’s panicked eyes. “Where were you?”  
    “I’m so sorry. I got this weird call from a supplier. I was in the back. Are you okay?”  
    “I’m fine. Nothing happened. He just wanted to annoy me,” I said.  
    “Thank goodness. I’ll stay here.”  
    And she did, right through twenty-eight swimsuits and countless outfits. I picked out things that later I wouldn’t remember buying. That call Sheila got wasn’t a coincidence. I would be hearing from Oswald Urbani again.  

    I parked behind a Lamborghini in front of Stillman’s Antiques Emporium and slipped into the breezeway between the shops. It was the best way to get onto or off of Hawthorne Avenue without being seen. I’d figured it out during my high school years when sneaking out became the only way I’d have a social life. My parents weren’t particularly observant, but other residents of the Avenue were. My parents got no less than five calls when I snuck out and got in Lizzie Meyer’s Beetle at the end of the block. Dad made a few calls and I was discovered in West County at a party with (gasp) boys. The Chief of Detectives put me in the back of a squad car and made six arrests for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. You can imagine how popular I was. I’d like to say that was the worst day of my life, but with Tommy Watts for a father, it can always get worse.  
    I don’t know why anyone cared about me, but they did. You’d think the wealthy would have better things to do, like ordering their gardeners around or collecting fine wines. Maybe it was because my family didn’t fit and they worried about the cop’s daughter bringing in the wrong element. As far as I could tell we were the wrong element, but once Myrtle and Millicent brought us in, we were accepted. Even though we never had a servant of any kind and Dad washed his own car.  
    The giant oak at the back of Harris Field’s property afforded the best hiding place. It was three houses down and surrounded by lilacs. I leaned on the rough bark and checked my watch. Claire should be leaving our house any minute. She was punctual, if annoying.  
    Right on time Claire pulled out into the alley behind our house in her baby blue Accord. See ya, sister. I’ll be looking at those files now. The ones you so helpfully organized. Once she’d turned the corner, I trotted up to the back gate and let myself in. Ha. As if a little thing like a confidentiality agreement would stop me. Amateurs.
    Mom’s flowers were a riot of color and scent. Heavy rose blossoms encroached on the brick walk and brushed my ankles with their silky petals. I lazed up the walk breathing deep and looking at the stacks of raw wood covering the patio. Dad was supposed to be replacing the back porch roof, which had been torn off due to rot. The roof had been gone for a while and buying the wood was as far as Dad got. Actually, I think Claire bought the wood, but Dad was claiming credit. He should just hire someone like everyone else on the Avenue. They’d be happy to have their