Drama Dolls: A Novel: [Dark, Suspenseful, Fast-paced, Exhilarating] Read Online Free Page B

dry rot needing repair, the empty house had a lot of work ahead.
    The Second Empire’s roof shingles were falling over themselves. Some were dangling off the edges. Other shingles in the grass in the front of the dwelling. Two of the four columns that supported the porch were off their posts, with sturdy steel beams in their place. The columns, sanded down to their original wood, they were perched up against the house’s side.
    The front porch was sagging on one end. The joists underneath needing reinforcement. A partial railing constructed, many of the rods were missing or rotted. A ceiling fan hanging from the porch roof appeared to be the only item in working condition.
    Furrowing her lips at the eyesore, Lena said, “I bet these houses cost a lot of money to restore.” The windows on the second floor were missing shutters; however those inside the porch area were still intact. The shutters still hanging were chipped and rotting.
    Barb, she said, “You’d easily dump a couple hundred grand.”
    Her feet propped up on the dashboard, above the glove compartment, ankle pain receding from not having weight on it, Brittney leaned her head back on the headrest. Her hair was blowing from the air coming in the open window. The warm breeze squirting into the small holes of the mask.
    Reaching her hand over toward Brittney, Lena cupped the resting cheerleader’s kneecap and began massaging it.
    Finishing the block of Second Empires was an asymmetrical mansard on top of a wooden house’s left side. The way the house was positioned on the corner closed the block perfectly. A painted beauty, chrome yellow with Venetian red window trim running up and down the exterior, caused Lena to say, “Wow!”
    Barb, leaning up to the window to see the entire house, said, “Looks like a Victorian McDonald’s.”
    The inner voice, whispering into Brittney’s ear in Victorian slang, said, “I would like fries in my sauce-box.”
    Turning the corner, Barb’s body shifted toward the middle of the car, shoving a bag of jewels into the passed out Drama Doll. “Easy on the turns,” Barb said to Lena.
    Rotating her head, addressing Barb, Lena said, “Oops.”
    Barb cut a look to Brittney’s propped up legs. Following her stare, Lena quickly released her hand from the kneecap. Hands returning to the wheel, the car rolled through the remaining historic block.
    The architectural neighborhoods finished with an aesthetic block of Richardsonian Romanesque style homes. Combining characteristics from French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque charms, the castle-like mansions, mostly made from stone, were throwbacks to medieval Europe.
    “These works of art were named after the architect Henry Hobson Richardson,” Brittney said. Her head cocked at an angle, observing the row of houses, she said, “These are the cream of the crop.”
    Each house, comparable in design, had short, unusually shaped columns, feudal type arches, and cylindrical towers, which were the main focal points. Pointing up toward a Richardsonian success, Brittney said, “The architect was very eccentric. He had an eye for individuality.” Various gabled roofs - side gables, front gables, and cross gables - were typical for the houses.
    “Incredible,” Lena said, the neighborhood passing by in a flash. When they passed a stretch of Victorian houses intermingled with Colonial Revivals, Prairie, Foursquare, and Neo-Gothic type abodes, the Drama Dolls knew they were getting close to their drop off point – Brittney’s house.
    Wrought iron fences passed by. Their individual posts made Brittney dizzy. Fences on top of retaining walls. The blocks in the wall spanning the house. Cracks in the blocks, they were as long as the wall itself.
    Detached garages doubling up as the car drove passed, Brittney’s vision became cloudy. Square garage doors zipping by, all the same size, each complemented a house.
    The voice of intoxicated reason said, “You are acting like you’re