Deadliest of Sins Read Online Free Page B

do crazy things … things they don’t mean. Don’t give up on her yet—she’ll probably come back before school starts. Nobody wants to miss their senior year.”
    He shook his head, adamant. “No. She’s gone. And she didn’t run off with a boy, either. The one boy she liked moved to Charlotte, and he didn’t even have a driver’s license. If you don’t help me, I’ll never see her again.”
    â€œI’m so sorry,” Mary said, “but this isn’t what I do anymore.”
    There seemed nothing more to say, so Mary asked the waiter for a to-go box and packed up half of her hamburger and the rest of the French fries. “Look, I’ve got to get going,” she told him. “How are you going to get back home?”
    â€œI dunno,” he whispered, growing even smaller in his seat. “I hadn’t thought about that yet.”
    She looked at him, seeing him with his bitten nails and scrawny neck riding in the back of truck load of peaches, full of hope and ninety-seven dollars, coming to hire her to find his sister. That had taken some nerve—too much nerve to leave him here at Kats N Dogs with only his thumb to provide him a ride home.
    â€œWhat did you say your name was again?” she asked.
    â€œChase Buchanan.”
    â€œWell, Mr. Chase Buchanan, you picked the right day to hitch up here. I happen to be heading down your way this very afternoon. Would you like to ride with me?”
    â€œOh yes ma’am,” he replied, his voice shaking with relief. “That would be awful nice.”
    â€œThen take the rest of this food. You might get hungry watching me pack.”

    She took the little boy over to the condo she’d sublet, parking him in front of the television while she threw clothes in a small suitcase. She had no idea what to take on a homophobic preacher conspiracy hunt, so she packed jeans, a skirt, and her beige linen jacket that went with everything. She was about to close her suitcase when she saw her Glock 9, gleaming dully in its shoulder holster at the bottom of her underwear drawer. As an afterthought, she threw it in her suitcase, along with a box of ammunition. Though she doubted she’d need to pack heat at a prayer meeting, she was going where two young men had been beaten to death.
    â€œReady to go?” she called as she hurried down the stairs, where Chase was sitting in front of the TV, watching a movie where zombies were threatening to eat both houses of Congress.
    â€œYes ma’am.” He stood quickly, as if embarrassed to be caught watching such a silly movie. “I’m ready.”
    â€œThen let’s get moving.”
    She turned the TV off and headed down to the basement of her condo. Chase followed, backpack strapped to his shoulders. Mary opened the garage door and turned on the lights. The Miata she’d driven for the past ten years gleamed, its new paint job reflecting like obsidian glass.
    â€œWow. This is way cooler than any of Gudger’s cars.”
    Mary smiled as she put her small suitcase in the space behind the roadster’s two seats. “She gets me where I need to go. Hop in.”
    â€œCould we ride with the top down?” he asked, gaping at the little roadster.
    â€œYou’ll have to hold my suitcase.”
    â€œI don’t mind.” He got in and buckled his seat belt, putting his backpack between his feet and holding Mary’s suitcase in his lap.
    Mary unclamped the roof, pushed it into the well behind the seats. A few moments later they were driving through downtown Asheville, heading for the county where girls disappeared, little kids brought the heat down on drug dealers, and ministers of the gospel advocated the extinction of homosexuals.

Three
    At first glance, Campbell County could have been the cover of a Norman Rockwell calendar. In the deep green blush of summer, it was a bucolic land with cornfields plowed so