Murder Al Fresco Read Online Free

to you. Malcolm is welcome too, of course."
    "He's out of town," I said flatly, not touching the invitation portion at all.
    "I see." Jacob did sound disappointed, probably because Jones was the calm and reasonable member of our dynamic duo.
    More silence. "Well, Kaylee will be here and Kyle, and we thought it would be nice to have dinner together as a family."
    Enough already. "Look, Jacob. I appreciate the thought, but the truth is that we aren't a family. My family is Pops and Aunt Cecily, Kaylee, and Jones. Kyle knocked me up in high school, and his parents hate me. So this little vision of a nuclear family with you as the patriarch isn't going to happen. If you wanted that, you should have thought about it before you bailed on my mother." Bitterness coated my every word.
    Jacob sighed. "I see you're not ready to hear my side of it. Okay, I'll give you time."
    He hung up before I told him that time wasn't the issue, and more of it wouldn't make a difference. So much for my positive attitude.
    I dropped the phone on the counter and braced my hands on either side of it. Rage made my whole body tremble. Anger was good. It kept me from feeling sad or hurt or any of those other gooshy emotions that changed nothing and caused me to want to curl into a ball and weep like a weenie. I was related to Aunt Cecily, who had lost her entire family, except for her youngest sister, to illness and immigrated from Sicily to America when she was only sixteen. Compared to that, my daddy issues were small potatoes.
    Headlights shone through the front windows, and Roofus rose, stretched, and waddled to the door. Only for Pops would that dog bother to get up and move voluntarily.
    I could hear Aunt Cecily muttering in Italian through the open kitchen window and Pops making soothing noises.
    "Lui è così sciocco!" she barked, and I wondered who the fool was who'd crossed her and if he knew he was essentially doomed.
     "Easy," Pops said. "It's not that big a deal."
    Aunt Cecily made a phlegmy sound, and I was fairly certain she spit. At least it was outside. More Italian broke the stillness of the night, too fast for me to even pick up. My eyebrows were practically to my hairline. Typically Aunt Cecily spoke in fractured English, seasoning her speech with enough of her native tongue to flavor the conversation. The fact that she was literally spitting mad and only speaking Italian meant we were at DEFCON 2 and war was imminent.
    My gaze drifted down the hall, and I briefly considered dashing to my bedroom and perhaps climbing out the window. This wasn't going to end well, and I would rather not be in the vicinity of the fallout.
    Then the front door crashed opened, and my tiny and furious aunt stormed in. She dropped her purse, which was roughly the same size as the overnight bag Jones had packed for New York, and it hit the wood dining table with a thunk .
    I didn't dare speak to her as she marched past me, not wanting to draw her attention. Her clipped footsteps struck like death knells down the hall. For a woman who was maybe ninety pounds fully dressed and sopping wet, she could sure make her presence known.
    Pops shuffled up beside me, and a moment later there was a slam along with the distinctive snick of a lock clicking.
    I turned to Pops. "Okay, so who's the dead man?"
    Pops grimaced. "My doctor. He said I need to change my diet."
    I studied my grandfather. Even though he was in his eighties, Eugene Buckland appeared healthier than many men half his age. He looked just as robust as he had this morning and a wave of dread washed over me. "Why? Are you all right?"
    "It's the darned arthritis." He held up his hands for inspection. The fingers were curling in toward the palms, the knuckles knobby and protruding through his thinning skin. "The hands are the worst, but my back is bad too. Remember when I had that spasm during the winter?"
    I nodded. "He put you on medication though. Doesn't that make it better?"
"It helps the pain, but it's not