Three Days to Never Read Free Page A

face peered in under the sagging door lintel, and for once his expression was simply wide-eyed dismay. His mustache was already spiky with sweat, though he would have had the air conditioner on in his car.
    â€œWhat the fuck’s going on?” he yelled shrilly. “Why the—bloody hell does it smell like gasoline in here?” Daphne guessed that he was embarrassed at having said fuck, and so hurried to cover it with his habitual bloody —though he wasn’t British. “You’ve got Daphne with you!”
    â€œGrammar left the top off a gas can,” her father said. “We were trying to get some ventilation in here.”
    â€œWhat was that almighty crash?”
    Her father jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “The window fell out when I tried to open it.”
    â€œSash weights,” put in Daphne.
    â€œWhy are you even here?” Bennett demanded. He ducked in under the lintel and stood up inside; the shed was very crowded with three people in it.
    â€œMy grandmother called me this morning,” said Marrity evenly, “and asked me to come over and look at the shed. She said she was afraid it was going to burn down, and with that uncapped gasoline can in here, it might have.”
    Daphne noted the details of her father’s half lie; and she noted his emphasis on my grandmother —Bennett had only married into the family.
    â€œIt’s a little academic at this point,” snapped Bennett, “and there’s nothing valuable out here.” He looked more closely at Daphne and her father, presumably only now noticing the dust in their hair and the mud on their hands, and suddenly his eyes widened. “Or is there?”
    His hand darted out and pulled the videocassette from Daphne’s purse. “What’s this?”
    Daphne could read the label on it: Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. It was a movie she’d seen in a theater two years ago. “That’s mine,” she said. “It’s about bad people stealing Pee-wee’s bicycle.”
    â€œMy daughter’s not a thief, Bennett,” her father said mildly. Daphne reflected that right now she was a thief, actually.
    â€œI know, sorry.” Bennett tossed the cassette, and Daphne caught it. “But you shouldn’t be here,” he said to her father as he bent down to step out of the shed, “now that she’s dead.” From outside he called, “Not unless Moira and I are here too.”
    Marrity followed him outside, and Daphne was right behind him.
    â€œWho’s dead?” asked her father.
    Bennett frowned. “Your grandmother. You don’t know this? She died an hour and a half ago, at Mount Shasta. Thehospital just called me—Moira and I are to fly up this afternoon and take care of the funeral arrangements.” He peered at his brother-in-law. “You really didn’t know?”
    â€œMount Shasta, at like”—Marrity glanced at his watch—“noon? That’s not possible. Why would she be at Mount Shasta?”
    â€œShe was communing with angels or something—well, that turned out to be right. She was there for the Harmonic Convergence.”
    Behind the grime and the tangles of dark hair, Frank Marrity’s face was pale. “Where’s Moira?”
    â€œShe’s at home, packing. Now if we want to avoid things like restraining orders, I think we should all agree—”
    â€œI’m going to call her.” He started toward the house, and Daphne trotted along behind him, clutching her Pee-wee videocassette.
    â€œIt’ll be locked,” Bennett called after him.
    Daphne’s father didn’t answer, but pulled his key ring out of his pants pocket.
    â€œYou’ve got a key? You shouldn’t have a key!”
    Grammar’s house was a white Spanish adobe with a red-tile roof, and the back patio had a trellis shading it, tangled with roses and grapevines. Over the back door was a