A Kiss Before I Die Read Free Page B

was two steps behind the car, cocked her elbow, swung her forearm, and with a quick motion slammed the nail into a decidedly agreeing gap. It was a cheap trick, using the telephone pole, taking advantage of its cracking age, but sometimes, especially in a small town, you make your own entertainment. She hoped that whoever planted the nail saw her. 
     
     
     
     
                 
     
     

(5)  An Honest Woman
    She parked a block from the hotel. She entered through the side lobby and took the stairs to her room, packed her duffle, taking towels, soap, and other sundries not knowing what was at Deerfield.
    She left a hundred dollar bill on the dresser.
    She exited a rear emergency door that activated the fire alarm.
    She was deliberate in the action. She wanted the man in the pork pie hat to know she wasn’t afraid. She also thought of it as a magicians trick, a distraction.
    “An honest woman can make decisions without fear ,” her mother would say. “ And she isn’t afraid of burnt bridges .”
    She drove north, passed the helipad, swung east, found Route 5, and took it to the Wal-Mart on the southeast corner of the village.
    She bought a variety of items – which included five boxes of Vivarin, a pre-packaged caffeine tablet. She did not take anything stronger than caffeine, and then only in pill form. She bought milk, frozen foods, and a dozen boxes of ammunition for the weapons she’d seen in Deerfield.
    “Looks like you’re having a party,” the cashier said.
    “An all-nighter,” Sam said. “A rager.”
    The girl was maybe 18. She was flirting. Sam wasn’t.
    “Where’s it at?”
    As a joke, Sam gave her the address of the hotel.
    People with real jobs and real problems were going home and she had to wait through a series of traffic lights. But she had time, and was content with food and the first caffeine pill that was beginning to create that familiar tickle through her scalp.
    She called the hotel and told them she was checking out because of the fire alarm. The clerk was apologetic and asked if she would mind waiting to speak with the manager. She did mind and clicked off while he was talking.
    After the light changed, the trip was quick and uneventful. There was no green Ford Taurus. The black road was unlit except for two white streetlights:  one at the south curving bend leading to the field and the other on the auxiliary road leading to the reservoir and its tanks. She swung into the driveway from the side she’d twice exited from, intending to off load her purchases through the three-car garage.
    The man with the pork pie hat lay face up close to the middle garage door, the hat near his left hand. 
    She’d left Ramon’s an hour ago; the lanky man had been alive ninety minutes earlier.
    Despite her father’s vocation, she was immediately chilled and nauseous. She fought the urge to vomit.
    She doused the Camaro lights. The location was too rural for her to park and walk to the house. She had no one to talk to or advise her other than the memory of lessons her parents and godfather had passed to her. She was undeniably alone and would need to make her own decisions.
    She parked at the front door. She locked the car without setting the alarm, avoiding its sharp chirp, a noise that might attract her new neighbors. Before she entered the house, she unscrewed the porch lights until they were off.
    She kept her gun forward. She wished she had another. She heard the water running.
    The water was a lure. Her father had taught her that when an intruder – especially a man with bad intent – hears water running he will automatically gravitate to it, assuming teeth are being brushed, hands washed, makeup removed. When he finds the water running he will turn it off because that is something people do – and doing this he will reset the lure.
    Only a few night-lights were lit, including the stairs to the second floor and basement. She did not search the house. The keys to the Laragia cars