The Deadly Neighbors (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries) Read Free Page A

was gaunt and he looked frail, but, even wounded, his body was wiry and his movements surprisingly swift. We circled each other warily, and, suddenly he gazed over my shoulder, behind me, to the left. I turned to look; his bloody fist struck the side of my head. Light flashed white and green, and I sank to the floor, dazed. He crouched beside me. Both of him. Raising two right arms, each with its own scarlet-stained knife. Great, I was half-conscious and seeing double, apparently about to be carved by my maddened father.
    “Dad—don’t!” My voice was raw, a whisper. I grabbed at his wrists, yanking them. The knives glittered. He fought with all his strength, his mouths coated white with thick saliva. Insane.
    “Dammit, Dad,” I croaked. We were caught up in a breathless struggle. Father’s weight and will were pitted against mine. I tried to focus, squeezing double images into one. My hands clutched the slippery red wrist that held the knife; the gnarled fingers of his free hand worked at unfastening my grip, nails digging, scratching, clawing. His face was a portrait of wild desperation; mine of disbelief. Eyes locked, attention riveted, I wondered how many ways this man had damaged my life. How many times he’d snookered me. Well, not this time. This time, my father would not prevail. Twisting his thin wet arm, I withstood the pounding blows of his free one, endured the blood-drawing scrapes of his fingernails, absorbed the raging fury in his eyes. This time, for all the times I hadn’t, I stood up to him, and we battled silently, a wasted old man and a wobbly, pregnant fortyish woman, each refusing to cave in or concede to the other. We slid across the bloody floor, twisted our torsos, bent forward and back, grunted and panted and pushed and jerked until, finally, I became aware that the small voice I was hearing was not inside my head.
    “Mom? Grandpa? Stop it!”
    Molly. “Molly—” I grunted, wanting to tell her something calming, but my father jabbed me and we fought on, rolling through warm crimson clots, grappling and grabbing, clawing and slapping, kicking, twisting, punching and panting, until finally he slipped, his head thunking first the counter and then the floor, gouging an impressive hole in the side of his head. The knife slipped from his hand, and as soon as he hit the ground I straddled his belly, settled all my pregnant bloated weight onto his cadaverous frame, pinning him, nauseous from the smell of blood and something sweet, like rotting leaves. Molly watched from the doorway as he lay spent, heart racing, cursing.
    “Goddammit, get off me—” He growled. He wriggled. He fought with every gasping breath. My father was maybe thirty pounds lighter now than he’d been when I’d last seen him, and his whiskers had gone completely white. But his jaw was still strong, and his dark eyes glowed like cold polished stones. No question, even distraught, skinny, bleeding and unkempt, he was still disarmingly handsome.
    “Settle down, Dad.” I was still panting.
    “Get me the knife—before it’s too late!” His fingers stretched toward the weapon.
    I looked down at his feverish eyes. “It’s over, Dad. Settle down.”
    “Let me up—dammit.” He craned his head frantically, blinking, straining to turn toward the woman. “At least check her pulse—is she dead?”
    For the first time, I looked closely at the woman on the floor. She was solid, sixty-plus, her hair dyed pinkish blond, clipped in a short curly perm. Her features were strong, symmetrical, her lips full, her eye shadow iridescent blue. She lay motionless, gray eyes open wide, mouth stretched into a tortured grimace. Her neck glistened red, no longer spouting.
    “Beatrice?” my father wheezed. “Bea?” He waited, repeated her name, got no response.
    I stayed on top of him, alert, waiting for the fact of her death to settle in, afraid he’d start swinging again. But he didn’t. When he realized she was gone, he simply