Love Kills Read Online Free Page A

swamp and eating people alive, big machines crashing, burning, and exploding, men buried in quick-drying cement. But it’s no movie. It’s real life.”
    Our conversation seemed surreal in this serene setting beneath a crescent moon.
    â€œAnd you suggest I go back there? Why?”
    â€œâ€™Cause it’s a great news town, Britt, and you’re a news junkie, just like me. Reporting is what you do best. You and Miami are made for each other.”
    I knew she was right. “How are things at the word factory?” I finally asked.
    â€œWorse since the anthrax scare.” She sighed. “Our incoming mail is all diverted to an off-site mail room, where it’s opened by an eighty-year-old man hired by security.”
    â€œWhy him?” I wondered aloud. “Is he considered expendable? Is he an old snoop who loves reading other people’s mail, or is he a wild and crazy octogenarian who lives and breathes for danger?” I wistfully recalled the letters that arrived daily at my desk, penned by wackos, gadflies, indignant readers, eager tipsters, jailed felons, and the guy with the foot fetish.
    â€œMaybe he works cheap.” She shrugged. “All I know is that he wears gloves and a surgical mask and is shaky with the scissors. It’s hell, Britt. The mail arrives in pieces with crucial parts missing or mixed up with bits of somebody’s else letter. Reading it is like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle. Everybody’s complaining.”
    But she had good news too.
    The Heat won the championship and thousands of crazed Miamians descended on downtown. Confetti cannons blasted. Fans partied hard. They did not attack one another or the cops. Nobody got hurt or went to jail. Hard to imagine.
    And the news about our friend Ryan Battle, the feature writer who labors at the desk behind mine, was excellent. His leukemia was still in remission.
    â€œâ€™Member Nell Hunter, that new reporter, the cute little one from Long Island?”
    â€œThe blonde?”
    â€œThat’s her. Broke Ryan’s heart.”
    â€œNot again,” I lamented.
    â€œNo sweat, he bounced back,” she said. “Now he’s hot for an intern, purty little thing from Kansas City. Saw them canoodling at the Eighteen Hundred Club the other night.
    â€œNell may be cute as a button, but she’s a certified bitch. Wrote a story that burned Sam Stone, the Cold Case Squad detective. Included all kinds of personal stuff about his dead parents and ambushed his elderly grandmother. I felt bad for ’im. He was real upset. No surprise there. The desk sent Nell out to cover a story on your beat a couple weeks ago.”
    â€œOh?” I didn’t think I’d care, so the hot surge of resentment surprised me. “How’d she do?”
    Lottie shook her head. “Not too well. The first Miami cop she met asked, ‘Where’s Britt?’ Nell didn’t take that kindly. Then she meets the Cold Case sergeant, Craig Burch. As he’s answering her questions, he calls ’er Hon.
    â€œâ€˜I am not your honey,’ she says, and blasts him in front of his detectives.”
    â€œIs she crazy?”
    â€œAppears to be,” Lottie said. “Burch is good people. Most likely he said it ’cause he couldn’t remember her name. She sure showed her ass. They showed her the door. So she beefed to their lieutenant.” She paused for effect.
    â€œShe went to K. C. Riley?”
    Lottie nodded slyly.
    â€œWhy on earth would she do that?”
    Lottie rolled her eyes and looked innocent.
    â€œLottie! You didn’t!” I put down my dessert fork and stared accusingly.
    She shrugged and confessed. “Nell called me, mad as a red-assed dog, bitchin’ about sexist pigs. Wanted my advice. How would Britt Montero have handled it? I just tried to help.”
    â€œOh, sure, you and Mother Teresa.”
    â€œI told her you would’ve marched