JP Beaumont 11 - Failure To Appear (v5.0) Read Online Free Page B

rolled up to the elbows, she stood on the porch with her arms crossed, staring down at me with the afternoon sun playing off the even planes of her spare, angular features.
    I’m not a weight lifter, but I recognize muscle definition when I see it. Since the woman’s forearms had plenty of muscle definition, it was safe to assume the rest of her did, too.
    “Really. Kelly didn’t mention she was expecting visitors,” the woman remarked with a coldness that was only one step short of sending me packing.
    I wondered what I’d done to merit such open hostility. Before saying anything more, I studied the woman closely. Her face was tan, but without the leathery look that comes from too many years of unrelenting sun. Everything about her was plain except for her eyes. They were a startling shade of violet that hardened to a flinty gray while she gazed down at me.
    “It’s a surprise,” I answered, trying to keep things light. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by.”
    “I’ll just bet,” the woman returned, not bothering to mute her biting sarcasm.
    It wasn’t going at all well. If this woman was the designated keeper of the co-op’s gate, then I would have to find some way around her if I wanted to speak to Kelly.
    “Look,” I said, drawing myself up to a full-attention stance. “If you’d just tell my daughter I’m here…”
    Eyeball-to-eyeball confrontations are just that. The first person to blink loses. My damn car phone rang just then. I lost the glare-down fair and square.
    “You’d better go answer your high-priced toy,” she jeered.
    Trying to maintain my somewhat damaged dignity, I turned and stalked back to the car. Naturally, my caller was Alex. “Did you find Kelly?” she asked.
    “I think so.”
    “You’re not sure?”
    “Not exactly. I haven’t seen her yet. Give me a break, Alex. I just now got here. What gives?”
    “Denver found us a room at a place called the Oak Hill Bed-and-Breakfast. We’ve got tickets to Romeo and Juliet in the Bowmer Theatre tonight and to the opening of Taming of the Shrew in the Elizabethan tomorrow. Denver’s going to try to get us in to see The Majestic Kid at the Black Swan tomorrow afternoon, and she’s invited us to dinner tonight. Meet us in the dining room at the Mark Anthony at six.”
    “The Mark Anthony?” I repeated. “Where’s that?”
    “It’s a hotel owned by one of Denver’s friends. It’s back on the main street, near where you dropped me off. You can’t miss it. It’s the tallest building in town.”
    When someone giving me out-of-town directions says the words “You can’t miss it,” I know I can and will. Miss it, that is. “Right,” I said. “See you there.”
    I put down the phone and turned back to where the woman stood watching me from the porch, her lips curled in grim amusement. The dog, exhausted with the effort of barking, had flopped down at her feet and was snoring noisily. From inside the house came the inviting smells of something cooking, soup or a roast perhaps, and the unmistakable aroma of baking bread. But baking her own bread didn’t transform the woman in front of me into Homemaker of the Year or make her the least bit friendly, either. Certainly not to me.
    “Well,” I said, “is Kelly here or not?”
    “It depends,” the woman answered gravely.
    “On what?”
    “On what you want with her.”
    I was tired. My temper frayed around the edges. “Look,” I said testily. “My daughter is a runaway. She doesn’t even have a high school diploma. I’ve come to send her back home to her mother where she belongs.”
    “Kelly is eighteen years old,” the woman pointed out. “What if she doesn’t want to go?”
    I was losing it. “All day long, any number of people have been quick to remind me about how old Kelly is. She happens to be my daughter. I know damn good and well she’s eighteen years old. I also know she isn’t old enough to be out on her own. I want her to go back