The Wandering Soul Murders Read Online Free Page B

crippling stupidity. He was warning me, not Peter, but my son’s unquestioning acceptance of people made him vulnerable, too. Peter wasn’t stupid, but it wouldn’t have taken much for Christy to convince him that a sexual relationship needed to be legitimized.
    By Easter, Christy seemed to be a permanent part of our lives; she was the problem without a solution. Then one day Peter came home and told me he had taken a job at a vet clinic in Swift Current until the fall semester started. It seemed too good to be true.
    “What about Christy?” I asked.
    “It’s over,” he said, and he’d looked so miserable that I hadn’t pressed the matter. I never did find out what had happened between them. I didn’t care. It was finished, and I was grateful. These days when Pete called to talk he sounded relaxed and hopeful. Now, just a little over a month after he’d set us free, it seemed as if we might become entangled again.
    “Stay away, Christy,” I said to the warm spring night. “Just please stay away.”
    When I walked into the house, the phone was ringing. The old ones used to say that if you mentioned the name of an enemy, you conjured him up. Christy Sinclair wasn’t my enemy, but when I heard her low, husky voice on the phone, I felt a superstitious chill. If I hadn’t said her name aloud, perhaps she wouldn’t have materialized.
    As always, she rushed in headlong. “Oh, Jo, it’s wonderful to hear your voice again. Guess what? Pete and I are back together.”
    I held my breath. There was still the chance that she was lying, still the possibility that this was just another case where Christy had crossed the line between what she wanted and what was true. But when she spoke again, I knew she hadn’t crossed the line.
    “Pete says Greg’s family is throwing a big engagement party at their cottage, Friday – a kickoff for the Victoria Day weekend. He suggested that I ride down with you and the kids. He won’t be able to get there from Swift Current till around seven. Jo, are you still there? Is that all right with you?”
    I felt numb. It was all beginning again.
    “Yes,” I said, “if that’s what Pete wants, it’s fine with me.”
    “Great,” she said. “What time should I come over?”
    “Around four, I guess. I thought we’d leave as soon as Angus got back from school.”
    “Great. Four o’clock tomorrow. I’m counting the minutes.”
    I walked down the hall to Mieka’s room and knocked on the door. She was sitting on her bed reading a bride’s magazine, and when she saw me, she laughed and hid the magazine behind her back.
    “My name is Ditzi with an i ,” she said in the singsong cadence of a TV mall stomper. “Oh, Mum, I can’t believe I’m reading this. But since I am, what do you think of that one?” She pointed to a dress that was all ruffles and lace. “It has a hoop sewn into the skirt.”
    “I guess it would be all right if you were marrying Rhett Butler,” I said, sitting down next to her. “Whatever would you do with something like that afterwards?”
    Mieka raised an eyebrow. “Frankly, my dear,” she said, “I wouldn’t give a damn.”
    It was good to see her laugh, but as I told her about Christy’s phone call, her face fell.
    “Poor Peter. What are we going to do, Mum?”
    “Nothing,” I said. “Remember what you said about the wrestling? It’s his life. We’ll be nice to Christy and hope for the best.”
    But at four o’clock the next day, as I watched Christy Sinclair get out of her car, I knew that being nice and hoping for the best were going to be hard.
    Even her red Volkswagen convertible brought back memories. At the end of her relationship with Peter, I had felt my heart sink every time the Volks had pulled into our driveway. But I tried to be positive. Christy looked great. She always did. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, but she had a lively androgynous charm – slim hips, flat chest, dark curly hair cut boy short. And she always dressed the