Dead End Fix by T. E. Woods Read Free Book Online

he said.
    Is this it?
Kashawn wondered.
Does he know I didn’t have nothing to do with killing that Pico?
    D’Loco waited until the men were in the house. Then he reached into his jacket, pulled out a white grocery bag, and handed it to Kashawn.
    “That’s twenty large.”
    Kashawn’s eyes strained in their sockets when he peeled the plastic open and saw the two-inch stack of hundred-dollar bills.
    “Get yourself a car,” D’Loco said. “Nothin’ flashy. Good engine. That what you need now. Spend around nine on it. You drop ten thousand cash, car man’s got to report it. You drive that car a couple of months. Then you take that car, trade it in, and add another nine. Get yourself somethin’ better. You keep doing that. Always stayin’ under that ten-G limit. This time next year you driving a ride any piece of jelly love to climb up in.”
    I’ma ask J-Fox to teach me to drive as soon as I get into the house.
    “What’s the other ten for?”
    “For you.” D’Loco opened the car door and stepped out. “You made me smile today.”
    Kashawn sat alone in the cavernous backseat of the Cadillac and watched his god enter the house.
    Watch me, Ettie. Your baby boy on his way.

Chapter 7
Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands
    “Let’s go to the beach and see those starfish again.” Hadley Grant stirred blueberries into her yogurt. “I never saw a pink one before. But I bet you have, right, Aunt Allie? I bet you saw everything there is to see in this whole big wide world.”
    The love radiating from those seven-year-old blue eyes was strong enough to melt gold.
    No man has ever looked at me with such adoration. So pure. So essential.
Allie reached across the small glass table and let a lock of Hadley’s pale blond hair curl around her finger.
    “I have seen many things. And I want to show them all to you. How does that sound?”
    Hadley licked a spoonful of berries and grinned. “Do you mean maybe I could see a castle? Maybe the exact one Rapunzel lived in?”
    “I know one that could be the place. It’s in Austria. The castle sits high on a hill, overlooking a beautiful river.”
    “Like we’re high here. This is our castle.” Hadley pointed past the wall of their penthouse terrace. “But that’s the ocean, right? Teacher says a river is like a road. You can travel on it, she says. Maybe the castle is on a beautiful river because a beautiful prince has to travel on it to come and rescue beautiful Rapunzel. Then they can eat beautiful cake together. Every day until forever. Now
that’s
what I call beautiful.”
    Allie wondered if there ever had been a time when the promise of pastry could make her as happy as it did Hadley.
    “Shall we go tomorrow? Shall we go find that castle?”
    Hadley’s nose wrinkled in contemplation. “How far away is Austra?”
    “Aus
-tri-
a,” Allie corrected. “Austria is a country on the continent of Europe.”
    “I know. It’s where the kangaroos live.”
    “You’re thinking of Aus-tra-lia. The kangaroos are in Australia and Australia is a continent all its own. The castle is in Austria. Which shall we visit first? The castle or the kangaroos?”
    “I want to go to the beach. I want to see the starfish.” Hadley focused her attention on her breakfast. The little beauty didn’t like being corrected. Allie knew if she didn’t change the subject, her niece would dig herself into a pit of stubborn insistence.
    “Starfish can grow a new arm if one is cut off. Did you know that?”
    Hadley dipped another berry into her yogurt.
    “Sometimes they escape whatever was going to eat them, leaving an arm behind. Or maybe one gets cut off when a motorboat goes by. Doesn’t matter. A whole new arm grows in the place where the old one was.”
    Hadley chewed and stared off toward the azure sea.
    “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that? If whatever part of us we lost could simply grow back again?” Allie let out an exaggerated sigh.
    A few moments of silence