Lalla Bains 02 - A Dead Red Heart Read Online Free Page A

far," I said, feeling guilty again that everything I'd done so far had only managed to put our family in jeopardy.
    "It ain't safe sleeping downstairs, either."
    I flinched. "Mentioning Spike, I'm still wondering how someone got past him last night."
    He shrugged off my concern. "We're both getting old. You saw how hard it was to wake me up last night."
    I nodded, but it didn't feel right. Or maybe I wasn't seeing something. Spike had been labeled a menace since before his last owner died, and everyone, except my dad and Juanita, gave him a wide berth. My dad, I suppose because he took him in, and Juanita because she made the pancakes he craved.
    But how did a stranger get past Spike when he was known to throw himself against the door to get to the UPS man? My dad must be right, they were both getting old.
    I decided to change the subject. "Juanita go to her grandkids birthday party today?"
    He picked up the remains of his breakfast, carried it all to the sink, and filled the tub with hot soapy water. "That was the plan. You going to do something about Margrave, or you want me to?"
    "I can take care of it, Noah Bains. I always do."
    He snorted at the sharp tone in my words, and the true course I would take to make sure Junior Margrave got his comeuppance. Then, whistling tunelessly, he went to drowning dishes under too many suds.

Chapter five:

    It was late afternoon when I decided a break was needed,   and took my dad's old farm truck to Roxanne's Truck Cafe. I continue to come here even though I'm razzed, teased and jeered at on a variety of subjects, like, "How long does it take a girl crop duster to finish spraying for mites?" the answer being, "Mite be now, mite be later." That dumb joke still put them all into hysterics. I didn't get it, but I suppose it was a compliment that they kept to crop duster jokes. It could be worse—they could still be torturing me with dumb blonde jokes.
    A faded, hand printed sign on the glass door at the entrance said, "Eat here and help support two kids in college." The "two" had been hastily crossed out, and "one" scribbled above it. Trust Roxanne to rub it in. I'm godmother to her handsome son, Terrill, and beautiful daughter, Maya. Terrill is in his second year at Berkeley, tearing up the football field, and sensibly keeping his head down. Maya, however, is in New York City blowing away the competition on the catwalk, and causing her mother to pull out her hair. Like it's my fault the eighteen-year-old hounded me until I'd helped get her a contract in the modeling industry?
    It's not like I held her over the baptismal font and breathed my long-boned Norwegian genes into her. She came by her height, good looks and grace from two handsome parents; her charm from her dad and her ambition obviously from her mom. She sure didn't get it from me; Roxanne's family is all a luscious café au lait , and I'm a tall skinny, twice-divorced, middle-aged white woman. Of course if you asked my dad, I was a wash-out as a model, and the same could be said for my ability to run his crop-dusting business—especially after this morning's fiasco, when I single-handedly lost the widow Warren to an unethical competitor.
    Still fuming over what I saw as my dad's unfair attitude for the loss of the widow Warren, I angrily pushed through the double-doors‚ snapped up a discarded morning paper, and took my usual spot at the counter and close to the coffee machine. I considered myself lucky when a busy waitress saw my empty cup.
    "Just get off work, Lalla?" asked Linda, tilting the coffee pot over my outstretched cup, and letting the last of the pot trickle down to nothing. "Lemme get you some fresh," she said, reaching behind her to get it. Linda Earnest could measure my weariness by her own, since she was winding down from a long night shift. She was also the widow of an Aero Ag pilot. A pilot's job was hard to take in the best of times, what with the long hours, deadly chemicals and dangerous flying. One