Hear No Evil Read Online Free Page B

same time, a sickening sensation contracted Eden’s stomach, worse than any the pitching plane had caused. She
did
owe Jessie. If she was honest, it always came down to that: she owed Jessie a great deal.
    Jessie had lived by her wits alone, but she’d managed to raise Eden and Mimi. “I take care of my own,” she’d always said, and she’d done exactly that.
    She loved money because she’d known poverty and feared it with all her heart. Security was as precious to her as life’s blood, and she was fiercely proud of her work, questionable as Eden found it.
    Her trade demanded a bold mix of intuition, observation, guile, and pure chutzpah. She was good at it,damned good. And she was right: no one could replace her—except Eden.
    Eden could imitate Jessie’s voice to perfection, and Jessie had made her learn the fortune-teller’s trade. Eden could so expertly impersonate Jessie on the phone that no one could tell the difference.
    She had done it twice in high school, once when Jessie had suffered complications from a gallbladder operation and again when she’d had surgery on her hand.
    Back then, Jessie had simply ordered her to take over the phone business; they had to have money, and Eden did as she was told. She’d hated every duplicitous moment, and she had hated Jessie for making her do it.
    She clearly remembered the hate—and humiliation, as well. Being Jessie’s granddaughter was not easy. Jessie was different from other people, not merely eccentric, but flamboyantly so. She could be loud and bossy and full of embarrassing pretension.
    Yet Eden could also remember being eleven years old and waking up with an earache so agonizing that she was helpless to do anything except cry. Jessie stayed up and held her in her arms all night long, trying to comfort her.
    Jessie had nursed Eden and Mimi through croup and flu and chicken pox. Somehow she’d found the money to get braces put on Mimi’s teeth, and, although she’d grumbled endlessly, she’d paid for Eden’s voice lessons. And Eden had often grudgingly admitted to herself that she loved Jessie.
    She’d loved and hated her, a hopeless, helpless mix. In California she had thought she’d left Jessie far behind, but now she realized that she hadn’t. The old woman could still exasperate her and make her dizzy with guilt.
    She reread Jessie’s words.
    “… you take Care of my phone Bidness until I getHome and to do it myself. You know how to do it and you are the Only one who can. Its the leest you can do for Me and I dont askt no more of you than That.”
    Tears of frustration sprang into her eyes. “Dammit, Jessie,” she whispered through her teeth.
    Once again she tasted blood in her mouth like an omen.
    By some sort of cosmic accident, the woman’s luggage had arrived. Owen had thought the probability of this to be on a par with the sky raining goldfish, but her bags heaved into view on the creaking carousel. A suitcase, not weighing much, and a suitbag. She didn’t plan on staying long, obviously.
    This actress wasn’t what he’d pictured. She wasn’t glamorous, she wasn’t even blond. Her brown hair was boyishly short, and she wore little makeup. But she was slim and trim and pretty in a fox-faced sort of way. She also had an air of razor-sharp intelligence, which was the last thing he’d expected.
    Now she came bursting out of the rest room, and she had fire in her eye. For the first time she looked as if she were related to Jessie, all right.
    She stalked up to him and waved the envelope at him. “Do you know what this says?” she demanded.
    “No,” he said, and he didn’t care. He was tired of trouble. It had taken him and his sister until two in the morning to get Peyton to sleep. Now Shannon was passed out on Jessie’s bed, and he himself hadn’t slept for twenty hours.
    “She hardly mentions my sister,” Eden said. “She’s not that concerned about my sister’s
child
. She wants me to take over her damned phone