Hit and Run Read Online Free Page A

– at age fifty – had an inventory of lingerie far sexier than AnnaLise did at twenty-eight.
    Given they were leaving late that afternoon to spend a long weekend with her mother’s one-night stand, along with his other former lovers and assorted ex-wives, it didn’t seem to be the time to ask about the origins of the underwear collection.
    Either that, or perhaps the perfect time to ask, though AnnaLise was damned if she would. Way too much information was to be had and, on that front, the last two weeks had been tough enough.
    She’d finally found Hart’s ‘Big Black Book’ and dutifully – if gaggingly – gone page by page, recording ‘pertinent data’ on each woman listed.
    In total, there were sixty-three possibilities BV – or Before Vasectomy – that she’d passed on to Boozer Bacchus. Amazing, but then AnnaLise had honestly expected worse, or probably ‘better,’ from Hart’s point of view – given the man’s self-proclaimed reputation as a ‘hound.’
    There were further encounters, mentioning even more females, but the descriptions were pretty sketchy. Sketchy, that is, in the completeness of information Hart had provided. AnnaLise resisted judging the character of his conquests, as God knew both Daisy and she harbored their own glass-house problems in that regard.
    Hart had been right about Bacchus’ investigative abilities, though. Boozer and his ‘emissaries’ had been successful at tracking down nearly eighty percent of his boss’ encounters. How they’d winnowed those down from there to focus on just those who may have the potential heirs, AnnaLise didn’t know. But she had been told that at least three of Hart’s former lovers would be joining them for Thanksgiving and bringing along their respective flesh-and-blood tickets in the legacy lottery – two boys and a girl.
    â€˜â€¦ powder keg.’
    AnnaLise, who’d been sitting on her mother’s bed lost in thought, looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Daisy. What were you saying?’
    The older woman sighed, then zipped up her bag. ‘I was just answering your question about why I think this is a bad idea. However, that’s neither here nor there. We’re committed.’
    â€˜No, but we should be,’ AnnaLise said. ‘
Committed
, I mean.’ She rolled her eyes and stood, too. ‘Come on, let’s get this party started.’

FOUR
    T he plan was for AnnaLise to drive the three of them in Daisy’s Chrysler to Dickens Hart’s estate. Even if AnnaLise’s own Mitsubishi Spyder had been big enough to fit the trio and their luggage, two months earlier that beloved convertible had met an untimely – not to mention violent – end on a mountain road.
    â€˜Can’t say this place has been boring,’ the dual-daughter muttered, moving the gearshift into reverse so she could inch the car out of the old and narrow garage her mother shared with their octogenarian neighbor, Mrs Peebly.
    â€˜It was before you came back,’ Daisy muttered in reply, alternating glances between her own and AnnaLise’s side window. ‘When are you going to buy a new car?’
    â€˜Getting tired of my using yours?’ Safely out of the garage, AnnaLise stepped on the brake before pressing a button on the remote to close the garage door.
    â€˜Getting tired of you dinging my side mirrors, that’s for sure.’
    â€˜Side
mirror
, singular. Besides,’ AnnaLise struggled to pay attention as the garage door refused to close, ‘I don’t know why you need a car this size in the first place. It’s too big for the mountain roads and barely fits into the garage.’
    â€˜It’s only a mid-size,’ her mother said. ‘You should have seen the land-yachts your grandfather managed to squeeze through these doors.’
    Speaking of which, AnnaLise stabbed at the remote again.