Hear No Evil Read Online Free

casually, Arkansas style. His faded jeans were not designer jeans, his cowboy boots were scuffed from use, and he wore a belt with a silver buckle shaped like a coiled rattlesnake.
    How Freudian
, Eden thought sarcastically. Yet she was surprised and displeased to feel a tremor of sexual awareness run through her. Guiltily, she willed it to go away, and it almost did.
    He had the Charteris family height and leanness, and the Charteris air of ironic detachment. She stared at him rather defensively, as if he were a prize exhibit in the museum of a past she’d tried to forget.
    The high school hero’s grown up and gone gray
, she thought.
And Mimi’s left her child on Jessie’s doorstep, and Jessie’s in the hospital—
    The thoughts of Mimi and Jessie struck her anew, driving all her other crazy thoughts away. She grasped her carry-on more tightly. “Has anybody heard anything about Mimi?”
    “Nothing,” he said.
    Her throat tightened. “What about my grandmother? Should I go see her right now?”
    Without emotion he looked her up and down. “I’ll take you if you want. But it wouldn’t do any good. And frankly, you look green around the gills. Maybe you should rest.”
    She brushed a strand of damp hair from her eyes and forced herself to stand straighter. “Jessie—how is she?”
    “Asleep. They gave her a sedative. She was raising hell.”
    Imagine that
, Eden thought wearily, but said nothing.
    “Who gave you the split lip?” he asked.
    “God,” she said.
    “Rough flight?” he asked in his laconic way.
    “My life only passed before my eyes two or three hundred times.”
    He seemed to try to smile again, but his mouth only twisted slightly. “I’ll take you home, give you a drink.”
    “I don’t drink,” she said more sharply than she meant.
    She thought she tasted blood in her mouth again, but ignored it. Lord, she was tired, but she had to keep her priorities straight. “How’s the child? Mimi’s daughter?”
    For some reason mention of the child wiped the forced smile from his face. He looked downright grim. “We finally got her to sleep. You’ll see her in the morning.”
    His words sounded more like threat than promise. She struggled to muster up a modicum of politeness and said, “You and your wife, it’s very good of you to take care of the child. Very kind.”
    His eyes weren’t kind. They were the cold blue of ice. “My sister,” he said. “Not my wife.”
    He bit the words off so acrimoniously that Eden sensed she’d made some sort of inexcusable blunder. “I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing what she was supposed to be sorry for.
    His expression didn’t change, but something in his mien had gone harsh, even more aloof than before. He said, “On the phone, you sounded surprised when I mentioned the kid. You didn’t know about her?”
    Eden made a gesture of frustration. “No. It’s a long story. No. I didn’t know about the child. That sounds terrible, I know, but it’s—a family matter.”
    “Yes,” he said. “It is. That’s one reason Jessie wants you here. To take care of the kid. She’s not going to be up and around for a while.”
    Eden’s jaw dropped in surprise. “She wants me here for
that?
My God, I don’t know anything about children. I’ve never been around them. I hardly remember
being
one.”
    “Me, either,” he said. “But she’s all yours now.”
    She stared at him aghast, not wanting to understand the full import of his words. “W-why,” she stammered, “did this happen? Why did Mimi send this—child?”
    “It’s a family matter,” he said, echoing her words. “I don’t know. But Jessie’s been nervous lately about Mimi.”
    She swallowed hard. “Nervous? Why?”
    His eyes held hers. “She thinks she’s in trouble. It involves some calls Jessie’s been getting. I don’t have all the details.”
    “Trouble? With the law?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Hellfire on a stick
, Eden thought.
What now?
    Owen Charteris raised his