Brown-Eyed Girl Read Online Free Page B

Delice was about to tell her. “You might as well hear it from me,” she said. “Hawk’s back, too.”
    Sally choked down the last swallow of Bud, muttered, “Who gives a damn anyway?” and explained that she was beat and had to go get settled in Meg Dunwoodie’s house.
    Delice just shook her head and said, “My my. Here we go again.”
    Dickie insisted on driving along behind her the nine blocks over to the Dunwoodie place, getting the suitcase out of her trunk, walking her to the door, stepping inside to look around as she turned the key in the lock and walked into the dim foyer. Margaret Dunwoodie’s housekeeper, Maude Stark, had turned a few lights on. In fact, the house was subtly lit for nighttime welcoming. In the foyer, a black and gold lacquered 1920s deco table held a silk-shaded lamp and a crystal bowl full of fragrant sweet peas , reflected from behind by a matching lacquer-framed mirror. “Guess they’re expecting you,” Dickie said.
    Sally noticed, for the first time, that he seemed to have his hand on his gun.
    She thought about Delice’s remark about break-ins. “Would it make you feel better to walk around and check the place out?” she asked him.
    Doughboy Dickie, big and strong and serious, strangely quiet and graceful, drew his gun, stepped into the living room, glanced around, pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen, satisfied himself, and returned to where she stood, staring wanly at her reflection over the flowers. “I’m going to look over the rest of the house and check out the backyard. You go on out and get the rest of your stuff, then come back and stay here until I tell you it’s okay for you to move.”
    â€œFor Christ’s sake, Dickie,” she said, trying to sound brave but succumbing, suddenly, to the feeling that she’d never been so tired.
    â€œI mean it, Sally. This house has been more or less empty for three years. Now you come tearin’ in telling me it might be full of priceless manuscripts and deep dark secrets, not to mention more antiques than they’ve got in the Ivinson Museum. Shit happens, girl.”
    God knew it had happened to him. She would be stupid to resent him for being careful when she didn’t know herself quite what all of this was about. Had she maybe heard something in the bushes when she went out to the car to get her guitar? She was too beat to tell.
    Dickie walked out the back door, into the yard, but reentered through the front. He went through the whole house again, clomping up and down the stairs. He pulled out a business card, wrote his home phone number on the back, and handed it to her. “Call us in the morning. Call us anytime,” he said, bending over to give her a gentle squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. “Mary will be dying to talk to you.”
    â€œYou’re the best, Dickie,” Sally said, putting her arm around him, glad to feel his big, pear-shaped body.
    He chose not to tell her that in looking around the backyard, he’d found a cat that had had its throat slit. “I mean it, Sally. This Dunwoodie thing is extremely cool for you.” He tried a smile. “But even if Laramie doesn’t have but four interstate exits, as you may recall, it does have its share of thieves, punks, shitheads, and pissed-off people.”
    Driving down Sheridan Street, away from the Dunwoodie house, Shane was feeling a little short of breath. It had been a long time since he’d harmed an animal. Slitting the cat’s throat had made him temporarily sick and ashamed, but not sorry.
    He’d nearly pissed in his pants when he saw the cop car driving up Sheridan, but when the patrol car failed to hang a U-turn and scream after him, his heart slowed down a little. He’d left a little calling card for the new bitch at the old bitch’s house, and the thought that somebody, probably Sally Alder, would soon find the cat, cut