5 Highball Exit by Phyllis Smallman Read Free Book Online

her handbag off the kitchen table. She took out an envelope and handed it to me. “This is for you.”
    I opened the envelope and checked the date. Like she’d warned me, the check was postdated to Saturday. “Look, maybe we could make a deal. How be you pay me half now and the other half on Saturday.”
    “Nope.”
    “Well, maybe we should go day by day.”
    “Nope.”
    “Why?”
    “I want you as interested in finding Angel as I am. Money is a great motivator.” She pointed a finger at me. “And trust me on this . . . If you don’t put your all into this, I’ll cancel the check.”
    I opened my mouth to argue, but her locked-down face plus past experience told me to save my breath. I’d only make the situation worse. I put the check away.
    “I talked to Dan Raines.”
    Her face lit with excitement. “Tell me everything.” She pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table.
    I did as ordered. Well, most of it. I told her that Dan likely was Angel’s father and that he was the one to find Holly. I didn’t tell her how Holly was earning her money, didn’t tell her about the pictures. I still had this feeling that I should shield her from such harsh realities. In truth, she needed protecting about as much as a rabid Rottweiler did.
    Aunt Kay asked most of the questions I’d asked myself the night before. After I’d told her a half-dozen times that I didn’t know the answer to the questions she was asking, she got to her feet and said, “Okay, let’s go to Sarasota, go see where she died.” She slid the strap of her oversized handbag over her arm and waved me towards the door.
    We weren’t even out the door before she stopped dead in her tracks. “I also need to see Dan’s baby. Maybe Hannah and Angel are the same child. Maybe Holly turned Angel over to her father.”
    “People would know if Shelly was pregnant. Or do you think she faked a pregnancy?”
    “If she did it would only be for a few months, or maybe it was handled like any adoption. It’s even possible that the adoption is no secret.”
    She thought for a moment. “I’ll decide when I see the baby if it’s Angel.”
    “Would you recognize Angel after all these months?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    I pulled my phone out and showed her the picture I’d taken the night before.
    Aunt Kay studied the image a long time before she sighed and said, “I’m not sure. I have to see her in person.”
    “Shelly and Hannah are in Orlando visiting her sister until Friday; besides, it’s been months and babies change. Let’s see if anything else turns up before we go bothering Dan’s family.”
    “Credit me with a little sense.”
    I bit back a retort and opened the door to the truck for her. The check I had tucked into my shoulder bag was making me more patient than I normally would be.
    She put her left foot in and then attempted to hoist her hip up onto the seat. She was too short. We’d gone through this the day before when I brought her home. I should have remembered and gotten a box for her to stand on.
    I looked around but couldn’t see anything that would help. Now, there’s where the trailer park has it all over the burbs. Back at the edge of the swamp there was so much junk lying around, I could have built a ramp for a rocket.
    She managed to get her left hip up near the seat but she just wasn’t making it on her own. I planted both hands under her rear end and heaved. It did the trick.
    Aunt Kay laughed. “I’m really not that kind of a girl, but thanks for the lift.”
    “It may not be elegant but it worked.”
    “Yes, but people will talk.”
    I drove out to Tamiami Trail and headed north with Aunt Kay beside me, humming softly away to herself, and the hot road shimmering in front of me. Even if she hadn’t been paying me to chauffeur her around, the drive would be worth it just to see her happy.

CHAPTER 13
    Sarasota is a gorgeous city south of Tampa on the Gulf of Mexico. With long arching bridges going out to Siesta