The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks Read Free

somebody’s heels were dragged across the floor?
    Nick’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Rising, he made for the bedroom. Not much to see.
    A twin-size bed, a battered bureau. The only thing out of order was one brown shoe lying in front of the closet. He picked it up. Cheap leather. Size 14. There was a hole in the sole. Nick set the shoe on the window ledge, glancing at the bed. A stack of books sat on the night table. Library books. I Like ’Em Tough, They Can’t All Be Guilty, I Found Him Dead, Secre s t
    of a Private Eye. A bookshelf was packed with paperbacks flaunting equally lurid titles.
    His mouth curved wryly. Okay, now things made sense.
    Still, remembering the terror in those wide brown eyes, he opened the closet door. Oh boy. The kid even hung up his pajamas.
    He glanced under the bed. Someone had raised their little boy right. No dust bunnies, no dead bodies.
    Cursorily, Nick glanced through the other rooms and closets. No corpses. There was an asthma chart pinned to the refrigerator, which told its own sad little story, and a box of Froot Loops on top of the fridge, which Nick found grimly amusing.
    As he shut the front door, the painted canvases lining the living room caught his attention. Nick didn’t know anything about art, but he knew what he liked. He liked these.
    There was a sureness and maturity to these calm studies of covered bridges and autumn woods that one wouldn’t expect. Chalk one up for the boy next door.
    The landing on the second floor was deserted when Nick reached it. Stein had either got bored or fallen over the balcony. Same scenario in the front lobby. MacQueen had escaped back inside her apartment and turned up the TV volume. In fact, the only people left 8 Josh Lanyon
    were Foster, who seemed to have recovered somewhat -- the inhaler was no longer in sight -- and the voluptuous Ms. Bridger, who stood before the unlit fireplace.
    “All clear?” she inquired cheerfully. Her red hair and green dressing gown were like a shout in that drab room.
    “Yeah.” Nick remembered the streak of red clay on the tub and dismissed it.
    “No way. That can’t be!” Foster’s thin face tightened. “Then they moved him,” he said stubbornly.
    “They? What, it’s a conspiracy?”
    Foster flushed. He had that baby-clear skin that advertised his emotions like a billboard.
    “Sweetie, sweetie,” cooed Bridger. “Couldn’t it have been a bad dream?”
    “Or too many detective stories?” Nick put in.
    Foster was still sitting on the bottom step or the grand staircase. He glared up at Nick.
    “I wasn’t asleep!” He turned that angry gaze toward the Bridger chick. “I got back from the airport, walked in, and there he was. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t hallucinating.”
    “There’s no dead body now.”
    Foster swallowed hard. “I think we should call the police.”
    Bridger looked in dismay to Nick. How was it Nick’s problem? Let them call the police.
    Just leave him out of it.
    “But, sweetie, Mr.…uh. Mr. --”
    “Reno,” Nick supplied reluctantly.
    “Mr. Reno has already checked. The police won’t find anything now. Right? We don’t want to cause trouble.”
    Nick glanced at her. Maybe a little hard around the edges, but still a surprisingly good-looking woman to be living out here in the middle of nowhere. What was it about the cops that worried her?
    “The police have forensic people,” Foster said stubbornly. “Trained people who have equipment that can find microscopic traces of blood or hair.”
    Nick thought of the bloody streak in the tub again. The possible scuff marks on the tile.
    “Listen, kid --”
    “Perry. Perry Foster.” Foster rose as though he had made up his mind.
    “Whatever. Foster, the police are not going to send out their forensics team in the worst storm of the decade because of a crank call.”
    “I’m not a crank! There was a dead body. Someone put him in my locked apartment and took him away again. Someone in this house.”
    Bridger