Name Withheld : A J.p. Beaumont Mystery (9780061760907) Read Online Free

their overnight stuff into a pair of shopping bags.
    â€œWait a minute,” I said. “Hold up. I’m sorry. I can see now that you didn’t do it.”
    Heather wasn’t in a mood for accepting apologies. “But you thought we did,” she stormed. “I’m leaving anyway.”
    â€œHeather, please,” I begged, “I made a mistake.”
    But she wouldn’t let up. “You made Tracy cry.”
    â€œI didn’t mean to. It’s just that—”
    â€œSomething was wrong, so you thought we did it. Because we’re kids.”
    â€œYes, but I don’t think so anymore. Really. I’m sorry. I apologize.”
    I’m convinced Heather Peters will be a heartbreaker when she grows up. She relented, but not all at once. She glanced coyly up at my face through eyes veiled by long blond lashes. “Cross your heart?”
    â€œAnd hope to die,” I returned. “Sorry enough to take you both to lunch, anywhere you want to go.”
    â€œEven McDonald’s?”
    â€œEven McDonald’s, but only if you promise not to tell your dad that I took you there.”
    The shameless little imp grinned in triumph. “Well, all right then,” she conceded.
    When we left the apartment, the elevators still weren’t working. We had to walk down twenty-four flights of stairs, but going down was a whole lot easier than climbing up. When we stepped outside the lobby, the news crew was still there. The reporter was busy interviewing Dick Mathers. Dick and his wife, Francine, are Belltown Terrace’s resident managers.
    Dick is one of those people who is incapable of talking without waving his hands in the air. He gave me what felt like an especially baleful glare as the girls and I walked past him, but I disregarded it. Some days I seem to feel more paranoid than others. And seeing the news crew gathering info about a flood of soapsuds, I knew for sure it really was a slow news day in Seattle.
    In fact, I never gave the incident anotherthought, not during lunch at McDonald’s, and not during the afternoon the girls and I spent—along with hundreds of other people—at the sunny but cold Woodland Park Zoo.
    When we came back to the condo, everything seemed to be under control. The fire truck and news cameras were gone. The elevator was working properly. When I dropped Heather and Tracy off at their unit on the seventh floor, Ron and Amy were back from their big night out. They both said they’d had a great time. As I closed the door to their apartment and headed for my own, I breathed a sigh of relief. The girls were home, safe and sound. No problem.
    My false sense of well-being lasted well into the evening—almost to bedtime. Ron Peters called upstairs at a quarter to ten.
    â€œWe’ve got trouble,” he said. “Can I come up?”
    â€œSure.”
    He was there within minutes, looking distraught. “Ron, what’s the matter?”
    â€œIt’s Roz,” he said. “She’s back in town. She’s staying at her mother’s place down in Tukwila.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œDid you leave the girls alone today?” he asked.
    â€œOnly for a little while,” I told him. “I was on call. A body floated up under Pier Seventy, and I—”
    â€œRoz called me about something on the evening news. She said the reporter was interviewing Dick Mathers, the manager, over something about soapsuds when you and the girls came out of the building. He blamed the ‘two little girls who live in the building’ for the problem. He said he believed they’d been left without adequate supervision. Roz—I mean Sister Constance—wanted to know if there were any other girls who live here besides Heather and Tracy. I told her no, they’re the only ones, but that anybody who said they’d been left alone was lying because they’d been with you the whole time. But if you were