A Thousand Tombs by Molly Greene Read Free Book Online

mirror, and he gave her an eye roll in reply.
    “Have you had any ice on that?”
    “Yeah, I iced it right away.”
    “Are you nuts? Once isn’t enough. Every twenty minutes, every hour you’re awake, for the first twenty-four hours.”
    Oliver had been a jock in high school – before he came out – so she trusted him to know about the care and treatment of this kind of thing. He cleared a space on the bed and made her lie down, then left and came back with a package of frozen asparagus wrapped in a dish towel.
    “Asparagus?” She started to laugh.
    “You wouldn’t expect me to have something plebian like corn or peas, would you?” He put the towel in her hand and she covered her cheek and eye.
    “Owww.”
    “So how’d you get it?”
    “The usual way.”
    “Where was your stun gun?”
    “In my pocket.”
    “Where was your pepper spray?”
    “In my purse, in the bushes.”
    “You need to take a class.”
    “How to have eyes in the back of your head?”
    “No, how to deflect the blows of an attacker.”
    “Oh right, that class. It’s a little late.”
    “And apparently you think it will never happen again.”
    Livvie went back to sorting, and Gen changed the subject.
    “How are plans for the shop coming?”
    Part of Oliver’s partial relocation to Carmel involved opening a resale shop he planned to stock with high-end stuff purchased from thrift and consignment stores. A percentage of the proceeds would be donated to charity. His new friend, Justin Allenby, would manage the store and use half the floor space to display the work of local artists.
    Liv perked up at that. “Good. Sophie’s pickers are going to work for me now. That will be a huge help.”
    Sophie Keene was a former client who ran a nonprofit that decorated rooms for indigent people just out of rehab. She was on the East Coast now, moving through the system on a twenty-year-old manslaughter charge.
    But that was another story.
    “I’m going to miss you a lot, Liv.”
    He stopped sorting and breathed in audibly, then let it out. “No you won’t. I’ll be here every couple of weeks to pick up merchandise and look for more. It won’t be all that different, for heaven’s sake. Not really. You’ll see. You’ll be just as sick of me as always.”
    Gen sighed beneath her ice pack.
    “If the shop doesn’t work out after a year or so,” he continued, “I’ll move back here full time and sell the Carmel house. Meanwhile, you’ve seen the cottage I bought in the village. You know you love it. I have a guest room there with your name carved over the door. Besides, you have Mack now. There won’t be time for anybody to miss anyone.”
    “I suppose,” she said. “But Mack won’t take me shopping and listen to me while I whine.”
    “Don’t make me cry.” His tone was stern, but Gen knew he didn’t mean it. “I’ll listen to you whine on the phone,” he said.
    “I guess I have to let things change, don’t I?”
    “What you need to do is trust, Genny. Change can be a bitch, but moving on is good.”

Chapter Seven
     
     
    In the majority of San Francisco neighborhoods the houses stood shoulder-to-shoulder, and sometimes even shared a common wall. There were few yards, and entry doors often opened right onto the sidewalk, or close to it.
    Piedmont Pines was different.
    That’s why Mack and Jimmy picked a place in Oakland, long before a collection of the city’s residents decided it was time to migrate across the bridge.
    The brothers owned the only place on the street that was built front and center on a double lot. That meant Mack had over an acre of land, and it was flat and usable. And nice. Except for the weeds in back. He kept the front yard trimmed, but there was seldom time to manicure the forest behind the house.
    Gen tried to fix herself up as much as possible before she drove out, so the eye wouldn’t seem so awful. Her thick brunette hair was clean and brushed her shoulders in a long, sleek bob. Her bangs