Hiding Tom Hawk Read Online Free Page B

he was frightened of this soon-to-arrive visitor. One had to wonder if there was anyone he wasn’t afraid of.
    ****
    Tom didn’t have the usual dread of entering an unfamiliar house and not knowing what confining spaces might lie within. This wasn’t like the widow’s little house in Houghton—this one looked huge, a mansion, and the rooms would be large.
    As they reached the front door, he probed, “How big is this place? How many guests can it hold?”
    “Let’s see. There are eight bedrooms including the one downstairs that Beth uses. She’s already fixed up two upstairs on the east for the B&B. Two others on the east she’s working on. But the three on the west she hasn’t re-decorated yet and she rents them long-term for now. That’s where I am. She’ll remodel them later for B&B use and I’ll have to move.”
    “So it’s just you and the landlady living here?”
    “There’s one more. A woman who came three or four days ago is staying in one of the finished rooms. I haven’t even met her yet. I guess she doesn’t eat breakfast. And the, ah, friend I mentioned moves into the other finished room tomorrow. This is officially student housing, but there aren’t any students. But you shouldn’t tell anyone any of this. Like I told you, Beth has some little legal problem to fix up before she can advertise as a B&B. That’s why she was willing to rent to me long-term.”
    Nuts. Here was an isolated, private place, pretty ideal for Tom’s situation, but the operation wasn’t legal, so there was the risk of someone coming here and asking the residents questions.
    They entered a large and well-decorated foyer, tramped up a wide staircase, and from the upstairs hall Robert turned into an unlocked bedroom. It was huge, maybe fifteen by twenty feet—a room in which Tom could be comfortable except perhaps for a single wing-back chair tucked too tightly into an alcove.
    Robert’s brow was furrowed again. “Uh, maybe you could stay out in the hall for a moment while I get your money?”
    “Sure.” Robert did not seem burdened with excessive imagination, and Tom thought his stash was probably under the mattress on that scarred walnut double bed. But he waited in the hall for a full minute, so the money must have been hidden deeper than that.
    “This is all I have, two hundred and eleven dollars.” Robert reluctantly handed the money to Tom.
    “It’ll have to do for now. You need to tell your landlady the Cutlass will be in that garage stall.”
    “Oh, right. Maybe you can come with me? We can go find her now, and you can meet her.”
    Tom didn’t want to meet any more people, especially a crabby old woman running a boarding house. But it was the price of getting the Cutlass with the conspicuous Arizona plates out of sight. Before he could agree, they heard a crash, and a piercing female scream rose from the floor below.
    “Uh-oh, that was Beth,” Robert said, and ran for the stairs.
    They found her in the dining room. Well, not all of her, but two legs and an arm sticking out from under a massive oak china cabinet that was sprawling on its back, covering her. The top of the cabinet was wedged against a wall; it had carved an ugly scar in the plaster as it descended. The bottom plate of a mover’s hand dolly protruded from under the cabinet; probably the load it took had saved her from a complete flattening.
    A voice from below the cabinet gasped weakly, “Air.”
    Whoever was under there, whoever had tried to move this monster alone, was a damn fool. Robert struggled to lift the closest edge of the cabinet and fortunately failed, as had he succeeded he would have just further crushed the victim. Tom waved him off, squatted, back braced against a wall and prepared to lift the thing from the top.
    “As soon and I get it up far enough, pull her out,” he told Robert.
    The shoulder, banged up when Robert crashed into him, hurt like crazy and he thought his gut would burst and leave his intestines