Kill Jill Read Online Free Page A

choice?”
    “To let me in? Yes. To answer questions? No.”
    She motions him to enter.
    “Coffee?” she says.
    “I’m coffee’d out. Let’s sit at the kitchen table.”
    They do. He says, “I’ll get right to the point. Your ID doesn’t check out.”
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    “You’re thirty years old, but the first record anyone has on you is a month’s worth of wages at the Pancake House in Davis, Kentucky. And that was last month.”
    “I came late to the work force.”
    “No shit you did.”
    “Is it a crime not to receive a salary before attaining the age of thirty?”
    “It might be, depending on how you managed to support yourself all these years without a husband or parents.”
    “What makes you think I have no parents?”
    “Your social security number belongs to a girl whose parents died in an automobile accident twenty-one years ago.”
    “Did it ever cross your mind I may have inherited a substantial sum of money from their estate?”
    “Not for a minute.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “According to the police report, you died in the same wreck.”
    “Well, here I sit, Sheriff, so whatever police report you read is obviously bogus.”
    “How do you explain having the same social security number as a dead girl?”
    “Government ineptitude.”
    “Ever been married?”
    “None of your business.”
    “Where’s Jack Russell?”
    “Traveling the country, seeking buyers for his business.”
    “Let’s give him a call.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “What’s his number?”
    “If you’d come here last night and treated me with a modicum of respect, I would’ve been glad to tell you. But I don’t appreciate your tone, your comments, or your demeanor.”
    “You’ve got a fancy way of talking.”
    “And you don’t.”
    His lips curl into a sneer, but his voice remains civil. “I’ll make you a deal, Emma. Or whatever your name is. You get Jack on the phone, let me corroborate your story, and I’ll get my nose out of your business.”
    Emma pauses a moment, then reaches for her cell phone. She opens it, places her index finger slightly above the key pad, then closes the phone and says, “No.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Why should I make your job easy?”
    “Why shouldn’t you?”
    “Because you’re an asshole, Sheriff. Either arrest me, or get out of my house.”
    He shows her a thin smile. “It’s not your house, Emma.”
    “I have more right to be here than you.”
    He stands. “For now.”
    “Run along, Sheriff.”
    4:20 p.m.
    Emma puts her cell phone in her jeans’ pocket, walks to the end of the hall, opens the closet door where Jack keeps his freezer. Last night she did this with the light on, but this time she closes the door and tries it in total darkness. She reaches behind the freezer, and pulls it toward her. It slides easily, twenty-four inches, same as it did last night, same as Jack said it would.
    She takes a moment to think about Jack. Wonders if he’s alive. If so, she hopes he shows up soon, because her story’s unraveling faster than a Taylor Swift romance.
    She climbs over the freezer top, turns her back to the wall, hoists herself down into the narrow hole behind the freezer, till her heels find the top step of the built-in ladder.
    She descends four steps, then pulls the freezer back in place. It proves harder than she anticipated, but she’s able to manage. She descends the ladder till her feet touch the concrete floor of Jack’s secret room. She feels the wall for the light switch. Finds it, flips the lights on.
    Funny how Milly asked about a bomb shelter this morning.
    Emma takes inventory. Mini-fridge, cot, wallet, money, forty bottles of water, snacks, canned goods, can opener, paper plates, plastic utensils, wet wipes, camper’s toilet, box of plastic bags for her waste, light bulbs, flashlight, batteries, ear buds, Jack’s handgun, box of bullets. Extra clothing. Sheets, blanket, and pillow for the cot. Table, chair, laptop