'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy Read Online Free Page A

the school.
    “Mommy?” Romi asked. “Is it okay if I don’t like her?”
    I took her hand and squeezed it lightly. “Yes, honey. In fact, I think that’s just fine.” Okay, maybe not the most mature response, but I didn’t care.
    Back at home, my super-intuitive daughter and I had our snack, followed by work on a shoebox she had to decorate for school. By five o’clock, she was happily watching her favorite cartoons, and I was whipping up a gourmet batch of frozen chicken nuggets and french fries for dinner.
    You might think that being a stay-at-home mom, I’d be a little more conscientious when it came to dinner. Not me. I hated cooking. Really. In fact, Vivian’s request—no, demand—that I make and decorate four dozen cookies really set me off. Of course, I would buy them from a grocery store. Just because she ordered me to do something didn’t mean I’d do it. I had my dignity after all. Plus, thinking of Vivian’s words would be inspiration during my next hit. That made me smile.
    “Mommy?” Romi asked while we snuggled on the couch to watch Survivor, Arctic Circle . I suppose you think it’s bad to allow your kid to watch TV, but I found this particular show educational.
    “What?”
    “Alta said we’re going on vacation soon. Where are we going?”
    “Well,” I said slowly, “we’re going to an island in the ocean for a family reunion.”
    “Oh.” Romi turned her attention back to Survivor , laughing as the contestants tried to start a fire in the snow. I mean, it wasn’t as sexy as the more tropical versions of the show. It’s kind of hard to get a tan and run around scantily clad in the snow and ice. I was hoping they’d have to dodge a hungry polar bear or at least a rabid harp seal before the season ended.
    Later that night, as I collapsed on the couch, ignoring the dirty dishes and baskets of unfolded laundry, I felt a wave of relief that Romi hadn’t asked more about our upcoming trip.
    What should I tell her? Eddie had always been good at this kind of thing. A stab of guilt hit my stomach when I realized I’d never told him the truth. He had accepted taking on the family name with no problem. I guess when your name was Johnson, anything else looked good.
    Damn. Much as I’d like to avoid it, I’d have to tell Romi something. But what? What had Mom told me? I had no memory of that. It was as if I’d been born knowing that nunchucks and plastique were in my future.
    There were parenting books on potty training, raising polite children, and so on, but nothing for this problem. Maybe I could manage somehow. For thousands of years, my family had transferred our history to each new generation. What did they do?
    Looking at the clock, I saw it was too late to call Mom, Liv or Dak. I turned off the TV and took a book up to bed. Light reading would take my mind off it until tomorrow when I could actually do something. Curled up with a pillow and blankets, I opened my book and within minutes I was laughing my way through The Dead Zone by Stephen King. I loved that book.

CHAPTER FIVE

    [A grenade lands at his feet] “And everything seemed to be going so well.”
    — Dwight, Sin City

     
     
    If you were to stand in front of my house, you would: (a) not see my secret attic, and (b) draw the attention of my surveillance monitors, making me very, very nervous. But let’s go with the first thing, shall we?
    I had a lovely Victorian house in the Queen Anne style. Behind the low-pitch, center gabled roof was a hidden dormer room, my secret workshop.
    When I’d bought the house, I’d been single and fresh out of college. (I had majored in Russian Lit. and minored in botany. More on that later.) Because of my unusual family business, I had hired a carpenter/electrician from Chicago to put in a “special room” for me.
    Bombays are supposed to be extremely discreet. So I had thrown an insane amount of cash at the guy I picked for the job. After exhaustive research to discover that he