Murder Mile High Read Online Free Page B

it.” I felt hot rage. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
    She didn’t answer, her head turned away. Then she said, “No. Not really.” She must have felt my anger. She put her other hand over our joined ones. “He was sorry, right away. He said he wouldn’t be back.” She fought for a deep breath, and I held my own, sensing she wasn’t ready to yield the floor.
    “Your dad came in then, with Byron.” She looked at me. “Your nephew—Molly’s youngest boy.”
    “I know.” I didn’t know, really. All I remembered about my sister Molly’s kids was that they were all boys—maybe two, maybe three of them. “What did Dad do?”
    She sighed. “He went into a rage, of course. If it hadn’t been for young Byron, it could have been bad. Byron—Biff, they call him—is a good-sized boy. He was ready to fight. Then your dad got his gun out, and Tony left.”
    “Dad has a gun?” That sounded like a recipe for disaster. “So did Tony come back?”
    She moved her head weakly from side to side on the pillow. “No. But there’ve been phone calls—breathing, and muttering. When I got sick, I worried about it a lot—that he would come back when Byron wasn’t here, get hold of your father, and there’d be a fight or worse, and your father would be killed—”
    “Relax, Mom.” I pushed her back on the pillow. Her breathing was light and fast, and two red spots burned on her cheeks. “There’s nothing to worry about. The threat he made is untrue, and he won’t be back if there’s no profit. I’ll take care of it for you. I’ll take care of him.”
    She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I knew you would. After all, you brought him into the family. You have to settle this, Lizzie.”
    I swallowed the retort that rose to my lips. She was right, as far as she saw it.
    We sat for a moment, holding hands. She was almost smiling, and then I realized she’d fallen asleep. I disengaged my hand gently and went to find Amy.
    “So how did it go?” Amy sat at the dinette, sipping tea, eating a large peanut butter sandwich, and reading from a big textbook. “I was dying to come in, but I thought you needed some privacy.”
    “You’re perceptive.” I found another cup and poured from the old blue and white teapot. “She’s sleeping.”
    “You set her mind at rest?” Amy spoke around a mouthful of peanut butter. “Something was really eating at her.”
    “I’ll take care of it.” I stared into my cup, wondering just how I was going to do that. I didn’t want to see or confront Tony in any way. And yet somehow I was going to have to make him quit threatening my family.
    There was a thump on the front porch. “Oh, gosh, I thought Daddy was going to keep Grampa away,” Amy cried.
    “Sounded more like a big newspaper. Is there evening delivery?” Even as I said it, I realized how unlikely it was. The clock over the stove said 8:31; no one brought papers around that late.
    Amy ran to the front door. “I don’t see Daddy’s car,” she said, puzzled, peering out the little window. “Just some hot-rodders or something.” We could hear the revving engine, the squealing tires.
    I pulled open the door. At first I looked toward the street, catching a brief glimpse of a big white vehicle careening around the corner. Then Amy gasped, and I looked down.
    A man lay sprawled on the front steps. His head was on the welcome mat. His eyes were open—the two brown ones that I was familiar with from several years of marriage, and a neat black hole like a third eye between them.
    Tony had bothered the Sullivans for the last time.
     

Chapter 4
     
    Tony was dead.
    For one instant my own heart stopped. A tidal wave of emotion rushed through me, leaving my knees weak. I clutched the doorknob, staring at that round third eye. It was as if I had time-traveled back ten years, with Tony’s gun smoking in my hand after my feeble attempt to kill him, as if everything between that moment and the present had been wiped out,