Keeley Thomson (Book 2): Keelzebub Read Online Free Page A

idea, it was to make the people on the far side of the door feel safer. Like the “criminals” their town had, a few drunks and some shoplifters most days, would be a danger? It wasn’t like this was a television program, was it?
    It took a bit to juggle the door handle and the boxes, but she managed with a little luck and a quick grab as the Bavarian cream box started sliding off the top.
    On the other side of the door it wasn’t hard to find the Chiefs office. He had a large silver name plate on the door. No matter what else the man was, his main occupation was clearly promoting himself as important. That meant, on some level, that he didn’t feel like he’d earned his place. Not really.
    Probably because he hadn’t.
    Darla had arranged for him to get the position twenty years before, which meant he couldn’t have been more than thirty back then. He was a decent looking guy, thin and in shape, with a healthy tan that didn’t fit office work or even a police chief’s salary. He also drove a car that had to be worth close to a hundred thousand dollars. She’d seen it before. It was a sweet ride.
    Even the man’s wife was something Darla had arranged for him. One of her old friends. Like Eve or Hally was now.
    So, yeah, she could see him having an issue or two there. In the main though, from everything she’d heard about, the police force really was run well in the area. Crime stayed low, and no one talked overly about the police breaking the law themselves. The cops didn’t even speed very much and from what she’d seen in life, that was kind of one of the normal perks of the job. After all, who’d be there to pull them over?
    Roy Benson, the name plate on the door said.
    Keeley stopped dead.
    She hadn’t seen that before. The last name. It was Eve’s last name. Her friend. More to the point, when she looked at the man in front of her, she could see the resemblance. It wasn’t some grand and obvious thing, they weren’t switched gender clones or something, but yes, the man in front of her was definitely Eve’s dad.
    The thing was, Eve didn’t have a father. Not that Keeley had ever been told about. Having the same name probably meant that Eve’s mother had been married to the man at one time too.
    Well, people did that. Got married, divorced and left kids behind like so much baggage.
    Keeley smiled through the glass of the door and waved a hand at the man awkwardly around the boxes. In charge or not, he jumped up to get the door for her before she could dump everything all over the blue carpeted floor.
    “Come in, please.” There was a sincere and pleasant warmth to the voice that hadn’t been there the last time they’d met. Of course this time no one had thrown a car against a house a half dozen times and then ran away.
    That could make a difference.
    Plus, she had donuts. The smell was driving her crazy.
    “Um, well, Miss Thomson. I recognized the name, of course... Normally Darla just calls if she wants something, is she alright?” He was really worried. A bit of sweat was creeping down his forehead already, almost as if he was panicking inside and trying to hide it.
    Also something she could see. Darla and he had a deal. If she died, he probably wouldn’t last very long, as the others swooped in to claim her stuff. Including him and his wife. Darla was a pretty good “friend” to have, but some of the others…
    “She’s fine. Working on an investigation. The boy that was killed last week?” Keeley took a deep breath and didn’t have to fake the slight shudder she felt. “He was a close friend of hers. One of her people.”
    “I’m sorry. Please tell her that if she needs anything I’m her for her.” He looked down and shook his head slowly.
    “I should do it myself. I could claim to be too busy, but… It’s just such a mess. One of the things I’ve never been able to really handle in this job. Murder just doesn’t make sense to me in most cases. Kill a kid because he might be