Blood Will Tell by Dana Stabenow Read Free Book Online Page B

with you?"
    Jack, more relaxed now that the attack was directed his way, gave an equable nod, his face displaying nothing more than a polite disinterest in Jane's next words. Next to Kate, Johnny was strung as tight as a wire, and she couldn't resist a brief touch of his shoulder. "Relax," she mouthed. "Everything's okay."
    Jane's eyes narrowed. "Get your hands off my son!"
    "Jane." Jack's voice was deep and hard. "Back off."
    Kate gave Jane her sweetest and most dangerous smile.
    The line of Jane's mouth tightened, and then relaxed. Her eyes snapped with malicious triumph. "I guess I'll have something to say to the judge about the degenerate home life you're providing for my son," she told Jack. "I'll wind up with full custody for sure this time. You should pick your whores more carefully, Jack."
    "Jane." Jack's voice lashed out. "I said, back off."
    Conversation in the restaurant slowed and heads turned in their direction. From the next table, Axenia smiled at Kate. It wasn't a friendly smile. Jack looked angry. Johnny shrank down into a miserable huddle. Into the growing silence Ekaterina leaned over to whisper in Kate's ear. "Would you like to leave?"
    Their eyes met for a long, pregnant moment. Somewhere deep down Kate felt a bubble of frantic laughter rise to match the hilarity she could see in Ekaterina's eyes, and together they burst out laughing.
    Jane's colorless skin flushed a dark, congested red right up to the roots of her colorless hair and her eyes narrowed to slits. Her date, a plump, uneasy man hiding behind a pair of glasses with thick tortoiseshell rims, tugged at her elbow. "Jane. Come on."
    Jane glared at him. "Yes, let's. The food's much better at Sorrento's anyway." She turned on her heel. Over her shoulder she said to Jack, the sneer back, "See you in court."
    The remark was largely wasted since Jack could barely hear her over Kate and Ekaterina, who were still laughing as Jane stalked out the door.
    When the laughter had died down to the occasional hysterical hiccup, Jack judged it time to produce his piece de resistance, tickets to that evening's performance of the Whale Fat Follies. They adjourned forthwith to Spenard and the Fly By Night Club, where for the next three hours they were accosted by nothing more serious than woolly mammoths, tap-dancing outhouses and hum pies from hell. It wasn't until after Jack was asleep that night that Kate had time to wonder why the president and chief executive officer of Royal Petroleum Company was dining with a member of the Niniltna Native Association board, in company with Mathisen, one of the most notoriously corrupt lobbyists in the history of Alaskan politics.
    The board member's motivations were unambiguous, as best exemplified by the watch Harvey had been wearing. She wondered who had given it to him, and decided it had probably been Mathisen, but she was willing to bet the funds for it could be traced back to John King by way of a lobbyist's fee.
    She hadn't had a lot to do with Lew Mathisen, but she knew of him by reputation. Everyone did; he was on retainer for half the Outside corporations doing business in the state. RPetco was one of them.
    The previous spring, Kate had worked for John King in Prudhoe Bay, tracking down a cocaine dealer who had been putting his half of the oil field into substance abuse orbit for months, a dealer his in-house security forces had been unable to apprehend. Kate had apprehended the dealer and the dealer's organization, as well as putting a halt to a sideline in the illegal obtaining and selling of Alaska Native artifacts from an archaeological site on the Arctic coastline. The job had resulted in satisfaction for John King and a more than satisfactory financial gain for herself. Oil companies might be immoral monoliths concerned only with making money, but they sure paid well. In fact, Kate had left RPetco with everyone except for the security chief in a more or less happy frame of mind, and she wondered why King had