Imitation of Death Read Online Free Page B

Spanish is atrocious.”
    Ina pressed her free hand to her chest. “In the garbage. They . . . they put him . . . out in the trash!”
    “ Who is in the trash?” Nikki asked, still not following.
    All Ina could do was point to the back door, left standing open.
    “The garbage? In the back?”
    “I . . . I was . . . carrying out . . . the trash,” Ina managed. Her English was perfect. It was just that after all these years, she probably still thought in her native language. “I took . . . the trash . . . to . . . to the receptacle in the alley. And there he was. Dead.” She pulled her hand from Victoria’s, clutching her head and rocking back and forth. “My hijo ! My poor hijo! ”
    Her hijo? Jorge? Suddenly, Nikki couldn’t breathe. She dropped the phone on the counter and raced out the open back door. Her heart was pounding. Please, please no , she prayed silently. She ran down the sidewalk that led to the back gate to the alley behind Victoria’s house, and ran past Ina’s little Honda. Ahead, the small back service gate was still open.
    Ina, Victoria, and Amondo hurried after her.
    “Amondo, take her back!” Nikki called over her shoulder. “Take them both back.”
    “ You stay with them. Let me go,” Amondo insisted. He, too, was spry for his age; he had to be somewhere in his sixties.
    Amondo and Victoria both wore slippers. His were blue corduroy. Hers were pink silk mules, which didn’t seem to slow her down.
    Nikki burst through the open gate into the alley, where there was a long row of multicolored garbage receptacles and recycling bins against the fence. The alley ran the entire length of the 1000 block of Roxbury Drive.
    Nikki stopped short in front of the bins. For a moment, she thought she might be sick. But only a moment. Unfortunately, this was the third time she had come in direct contact with a dead body. It wasn’t Jorge, though.
    “Amondo, please,” she said, sounding amazingly calm. She couldn’t take her eyes off the blue receptacle directly in front of her. “Go back to the house and call nine-one-one. Give them our address, but tell them they need to come to the rear alley.”
    Amondo tried to block Victoria’s view of the body, but she was not a woman to be kept from anything.
    “Oh, heavens,” Victoria sighed, sounding more sad than horrified. The body was posed like a wax figure, eyes open wide. “I was afraid something like this was going to happen.” She gestured toward the body, propped up against the trash barrel. “Didn’t I tell you, Amondo, that it was only a matter of time before this happened?”
    Ina cried quietly, her hands covering her mouth.
    A pair of pruning shears protruded from Eddie’s chest.
    From where Nikki was standing, she could clearly read the name etched on the wooden handle. J. Delgado.
    They were Jorge’s pruning shears. The same shears she had seen him using on Victoria’s azaleas the previous night, just before his argument with Eddie. The argument where he threatened to kill Eddie.
    “ Dios a mio ,” Ina mumbled. She and Amondo crossed themselves simultaneously.
    The shock of the moment passed. Nikki turned to the others. “Everyone, go back to the house. Amondo, call nine-one-one. I’ll stay here.” She swallowed hard. “With the body.”
    “Nicolette.”
    Nikki met her mother’s gaze, Bordeaux blues to Bordeaux blues. Nikki knew what Victoria was thinking. This was Nikki’s third dead body, but it was the second time she and her mother had been together in the presence of one. A tumble of memories filled Nikki’s eyes with tears.
    “Nicolette, I’ll stay. You go back to the house.” In a rare demonstration of affection, Victoria rested her hand on Nikki’s forearm. Her eyes were dry. The woman was honed of steel and, at this moment, Nikki realized how thankful she was for that. Victoria’s strength gave her strength. It had always been that way between them.
    “No,” Nikki said. “You’re not dressed. I’m sure