Backwoods by sara12356 Read Free Book Online Page B

find
himself so easily convinced.
    “Come on.” Suzette took him by the hand. “Eat
with me down the hall, in the rec room. Dr. Moore likes to have
dinner alone with Alice in the apartment. It’s their special time
together. Or some such bullshit.” She cut her eyes toward the mess
hall line, then back to him as she stepped closer. Near enough so
that when she raised onto her tiptoes, stage-whispering into his
ear, her breath tickled his skin, she said, “Besides the grunts all
take turns in the kitchen fixing food. And none of them can cook
worth a damn.”
    For the first time since he’d opened his door
to find Dr. Moore on the other side, Andrew relaxed enough to
smile. “But you can?”
    Her smile widened, coy and enigmatic. “Dr.
Moore didn’t hire me for my medical background,” she replied. Still
holding him by the hand, she gave his arm a light tug. “Come on.
I’ll prove it.”
    ****
    “Someone firebombed his house,” Suzette said.
They had the rec room to themselves. She’d trundled a Styrofoam
cooler down from the upstairs apartment and had everything set up,
waiting for them.
    “How’d you know I’d say yes?” Andrew had
asked.
    “I didn’t,” she’d replied. “But either way,
I’m not eating that shit.”
    “Dr. Moore, I mean,” she continued as she
pulled a foil-wrapped package out of the cooler. If the smell from
the dining hall could have best been described as banal, then what
wafted from that cooler was something akin to heaven. “It happened
a couple of months ago. That’s why Alice had to come stay here, why
he had to hire me. Her previous caregiver died trying to get out.
Of the house, I mean. Not the job.” She snickered. “At least, I
don’t think that’s the case.”
    “Do they know who did it?” Andrew asked.
    Suzette shook her head. “Dr. Moore told me
the local police, the FBI, the Massachusetts Fire Marshall’s
office, they’re all investigating. He had a nice house in Weston, a
ritzy suburb of Boston, but he wasn’t there at the time. There was
no one home but Alice and the nurse, what’s-her-name. They think it
might have been a group of animal rights zealots. PACA, I think
they’re called. People Against Cruelty to Animals.”
    She peeled back the foil to allow a puff of
steam to trail out. “I hope you like fried chicken. It’s still hot.
Probably crispy, too, for the most part.” With a wink and a smile,
she added, “It’s my grandmother’s recipe, passed along from
generation to generation of women in my family since the Great
Depression.”
    “Top secret?” he asked. “You’d have to kill
me if I learned it?”
    This time, she laughed. “Now you’re catching
on.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Not good, Andrew thought some time
later, flat on his back, naked except for sheets that lay swathed
around his hips.
    After the meal, Suzette had pulled a fifth of
tequila out of the cooler. “How about a shot?”
    “How about,” he’d agreed, figuring what the
hell. In the past forty-eight hours, he’d nearly died in a car
wreck, been arrested on federal felony trespass charges and been
shot in the face. Twice. I’ve earned a drink, if nothing
else.
    Two hours later, Suzette slept on her stomach
beside him, her face turned away, her arms and legs spread-eagle,
her blonde hair spread about her head in a messy tumble.
    Not good, he thought again.
    They’d downed tequila until they’d both been
slurring and shit-faced. When she’d stood, wobbling off balance and
stumbling, he’d leaped to his feet, catching her clumsily against
his chest. “I think I’d better go to bed,” she’d told him with a
laugh. Then, in a lower, husky voice, she’d added slyly, “Want to
tag along?”
    Moore had promised to shoot him if he caught
him in the apartment. In equally no-uncertain-terms, Prendick had
promised to have him arrested and prosecuted for similar trespass.
But as Suzette’s hand trailed to the waistband of his jeans, then
further south from there,