The Shop Read Online Free Page B

sat in the car, and the two of them stared at the yellow tape stretched across the open doorway. On the way over, Maddy’d told her she’d been driving around since she heard the news from her husband’s second in command early this morning. Jolie asked her where she went, but Maddy couldn’t remember all the places. “I just drove,” she said. Meridian Beach, Port St. Joe, up to Wewahitchka and back. She turned off her phone because she didn’t want to hear from reporters.
    Jolie didn’t push her. She knew Maddy wouldn’t need any prodding to unburden herself. Pushing might even cause her to pull away. The woman had questions of her own. Did anyone hear anything? Was he found right away? Who found him? Who would do this? All the questions an innocent victim of a senseless crime would ask as they tried to get their arms around the enormity of the death. As if the details would help them. Some questions Jolie could answer, which she did.
    They both knew it was all prelude.
    Maddy Akers stared at the windshield. “I just don’t understand how he could—” She stopped herself.
    Jolie waited, then asked, “Could what?”
    Maddy swiped at her eyes under the dark glasses. “How he could let someone just walk up on him like that.”
    Jolie stayed quiet.
    “I don’t understand why he was here at all. Why would he come to a place like this? It wasn’t like him. People will say it was some woman . I don’t believe it.”
    “I don’t either.” Which was the truth.
    “How could he do this to himself?”
    “Do what?”
    Maddy stared at her. “What do you mean?”
    “You said, ‘How could he do this to himself?’”
    Maddy covered her mouth.
    “How could he do what?”
    Maddy turned in her seat and stared at Jolie. “You wanted us to stop here, didn’t you?” She bent her head down, swiped at her eyes again. Bunched her fist and hit her thigh, twice, hard. “I can’t do this,” she said through a blur of tears. “I tried. I just wanted to—oh, shit. I couldn’t let them—” She stopped, staring at Jolie clear-eyed. “I think you’re getting the wrong impression here. Either that, or you’re trying to put words in my mouth.”
    Jolie put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space.
    “Where are we going?” Maddy demanded.
    “I need to take your statement.”
    “That’s it? That’s all?”
    Jolie said, “What else is there?”

8
LANDRY
ARCADIA, CALIFORNIA
    Landry turned onto his street, which looked like every other street in the housing division in which he lived. The division was called Orchard Commons, although there were no orchards, and he didn’t know what a “commons” was. But Orchard Commons was ten minutes on the 210 from Santa Anita, one of the reasons he bought in here.
    Landry felt dispossessed. His wife Cindi was out of town with her sister. Two days ago he’d dropped his kid off at camp near Lake Arrowhead. She’d be gone for two weeks.
    Cindi would be back in three days, but Landry missed her already.
    They had been childhood sweethearts. They grew up together. He had been away for most of their marriage. Bosnia in the nineties, two deployments in Afghanistan, three more deployments in Iraq, and eight months working security for Kellogg, Root & Brown. But in the last few years, he’d made sure he stayed home as much as possible, making up for the time they were apart. Even on overnight trips, he missed her. It was a physical ache that centered just under his navel, and if it could be given a name, that word would be “longing.”
    This was worse by far. He had never been the one left behind before.
    It was comforting to drive through the maze of houses in the flat, hot, California sunlight. The place was familiar in its sameness, every house looking like every other house, with the exception of the cars parked out front and the configurations of the bushes and trees. Every house had a two-car garage. Every house had a peaked roof. All the houses were tan