Fox Tracks Read Online Free Page B

it.
    “And you, too,” Sister replied and Tootie echoed her.
    Out into the fray they charged. If anything, the storm had worsened.
    “I bet Galdos Senior nearly died when he suffered through his first New York blizzard,” Sister said, head down.
    “I got spoiled at Custis Hall.” Tootie was born and raised inChicago. “Princeton reminds me of why I love Virginia. Four seasons of equal length. No long winters. I have good professors but, Sister, I hate it. I want to be an equine vet. I don’t need to go to Princeton, but Dad swears he will cut off the money if I don’t finish.”
    “Princeton is one of the best universities in this country, honey. You can go to vet school after your undergraduate work. That gives you three more years, well, three and a half, to work on the parental units. I’m assuming your mother is in league with your father.”
    “I guess,” Tootie responded with no enthusiasm.
    After another big blast smacked them, Sister ducked into a doorway. The two women huddled there for a moment as Sister opened her bag, fishing for her cell phone.
    “Oh no, I left my phone on the counter.” She sighed. “You go on back to the hotel. No point in both of us being out in this.”
    “How can I ever dream of whipping-in if I can’t take a little bad weather on foot? We can sprint.”
    They did, despite the slippery pavement.
    Pushing the door open, they laughed to be out of the storm but they did not see Adolfo behind the counter.
    “Maybe he’s in the humidor room.” Tootie shook the snow off her head, then passed the counter as she walked toward the large climate-controlled room. She turned slightly as Sister triumphantly spotted and retrieved her cell phone: right on the counter where she left it.
    “Sister!” Tootie called, before running for the back of the counter.
    The older woman followed Tootie, now kneeling down.
    “Dear God!” Sister exclaimed, for Adolfo Galdos lay on his back, beautiful green eyes staring straight up to Heaven. He’d been shot neatly between the eyes. On his chest lay a pack of American Smokes cigarettes.

CHAPTER 3
    A glorious swirl of red, white, and black filled the ornate ballroom of The Pierre. Tradition dictates that all hunt balls should be white tie, but over the years they had devolved into black tie for those men not awarded their colors.
    From her table, Sister watched the men entitled to wear evening scarlet: formal tails with the colors of their hunt on the lapel. Hard to fault even a hefty fellow in such splendor. The women in attendance wore white or black gowns. A few refined ladies even wore long evening gloves.
    Concentrating on how much she wished the other less stylish gentlemen had worn black tails with white tie, Sister tried to keep her mind off Adolfo’s shocking murder. It wasn’t working.
    Gray, usually on the dance floor, returned with a glass of alcohol for her. “Not bad.”
    “You would know better than I.” She took the glass.
    He slightly flipped up his scarlet tails to take the seat next to Sister. “Runs in the family,” he stated matter-of-factly.
    Indeed it did. His brother, Sam, a Harvard graduate, once lived at the train depot in Charlottesville, being moved nightly along with the other alcoholics. They slept under whatever bridge, overpass, or deep doorway they could find, until again being chased off. Over the years, Gray and his sister, a total snob, would discuss Sam, but only Gray would actually drive down from Washington to talk to his brother. Three years ago, Sam agreed to dry out, which he did. This more or less had a happy ending except that Sam was now employed by Crawford Howard, Sister’s enemy. After just five years of habitation in Charlottesville, Crawford was the only person to give Sam a chance. People who had known him all his life worried that sooner or later Sam would backslide.
    Sister found herself wishing she and Tootie had found Crawford Howard shot instead of Adolfo. However, furious as the