3 Men and a Body Read Free Page A

some
    marathon poker tournament and forget. He was planning
    to meet me at the hospital like he said. Something bad has
    happened, I know it now.”
    “Shh, you don’t know that for sure,” Hannah said. “Wait to
    see if he shows up at his P.O.’s office. Do you have the
    phone number?”
    “There’s a business card on the bul etin board in his
    room.”
    “Want me to get it?”
    “Would you?”
    “Want me to feed Einstein while I’m in there?”
    “Please,” she said. The last time the massive python had
    gone unfed for too long, it had found its way out of
    Wesley’s room and into Carlotta’s bed.
    When she returned, Hannah tried to entertain Carlotta by
    coaxing her to the back deck to stick her feet in the kiddie
    pool Wesley had bought for her—to make up, he’d said,
    for the lavish life she’d given up with Peter in order to
    raise him. The cool water felt good between her toes, but
    it only made her miss Wesley more.
    “I’m sorry I have to leave,” Hannah said later, standing
    with her hands on her hips, back in ful goth garb and
    makeup, the barbel in her tongue clicking against her
    teeth. “But I can’t get anyone to cover me on this
    corporate luncheon.”
    “Go,” Carlotta urged, shin-deep in the pool and clutching
    the phone. “You’ve done enough hand-holding for a
    lifetime.”
    “Call me to let me know what you find out. I should be
    finished in a couple of hours or so.”
    Carlotta waved her off, and attempted to relax, trying to
    find some solace in the beautiful sunny day and the fact
    that the neighborhood that she’d hated living in was
    looking quite pretty today. When the trees were leafed
    out, they hid the shabbiness of most of the homes, their’s
    included. The gay couple that lived on the other side of
    them, whom they’d only seen and not met, had made
    upgrades to their house. Now that she thought about it,
    she decided her neighbors probably didn’t extend
    themselves because the Wren place was, as Mrs.
    Winningham had so often reminded her, “a blight on our
    good street.”
    Ironically, Carlotta had vowed to update their place and
    make some badly needed repairs just before she’d broken
    her arm. For extra money, she had even contemplated
    joining forces with Hannah to go on some body-moving
    jobs for Coop—much to Hannah’s great delight. But that,
    too, would have to wait until after Carlotta’s arm healed.
    “Come home safe, Wesley,” she whispered. “I have plans
    for us. You can’t leave me, too.”
    In that moment, her hatred for her parents was a palpable
    black mass in the air around her. She shouldn’t have to
    deal with this alone. What if something happened to
    Wesley? Life without her brother was just too impossible
    to comprehend. She realized with a start how he must
    have felt when he thought she’d taken a dive off that
    bridge, before they had learned it was someone
    pretending to be her.
    Their parents’ abandonment had forced them into a
    closeness that probably wasn’t healthy. She wondered if
    they would forever be emotionally dependent on each
    other, or if either would someday make room in their life
    for someone special. Wesley was particularly resistant to
    change—he stil refused to al ow her to take down the
    aluminum Christmas tree in the living room that their
    mother had put up mere days before she’d skipped town
    with their father. So it sat there in the corner, a sagging,
    tarnished emblem of their family, complete with little gifts
    underneath that had never been opened.
    Except by Jack Terry, when he’d stayed at their house
    doing “surveil ance” in case her parents showed up for the
    fake funeral. He’d thought he might find clues in them as
    to their parents’ whereabouts. He’d rewrapped the gifts,
    but Carlotta had been furious when she discovered what
    he’d done. Had been hurt. Confused. Torn.
    With Jack, everything was muddy.
    Meanwhile, the hands on the clock seemed to crawl. The
    phone didn’t