Dead If I Do by Tate Hallaway Read Free Book Online Page B

he looked a bit like a sexed-up Radar O’Reilly from M*A*S*H or James Spader in the movie Stargate . Izzy came out from behind the bar to join Sebastian and me as we approached them. “What’s going on?” she asked. Mátyás glanced up. From what I could tell, he’d taken most of Europe and Asia and was clearly advancing on the South Pacific. William’s extracurricular reading didn’t seem to be helping him.
    I opened my mouth, but Sebastian beat me to it. “Where is she?” he demanded.
    “Who?” You’d think Mátyás would know better than to try the innocent act on his father. Sebastian ground his teeth together angrily, and I wasn ’t sure he was going to say anything constructive, so I said, “Your mother.” Then, just to be crystal clear, I added, “Teréza.”
    Mátyás quickly looked over his shoulder as if worried she might be hovering there. Then he glanced from Izzy to me, avoiding looking at Sebastian. “Uh . . . I don’t really know. I sort of lost track of her.”
    “Lost track?” Sebastian sputtered.
    “You have a mother living around here?” Izzy asked with a tone that implied she felt she should have heard about this before now, and Mátyás was down a couple of relationship points. I smiled.
    “Living? I thought your mother was dead,” William said, his attention still divided between the conversation and the game. He had the kind of vaguely guilty look of someone who really wanted to take advantage of Mátyás ’s distraction and change the board.
    Meanwhile, Adam Sandler serenaded us with “The Chanukah Song.”
    “Either way,” I said. “Teréza certainly found us.”
    Mátyás’s face tightened for a moment, but then he smiled up at us. “Seriously? She was up and walking? That’s fantastic. Did she say anything?”
    She had cursed Sebastian and me. Was this some kind of breakthrough Mátyás was hoping for? Actually, she had said, “I curse you.” She could have talking to both of us . . . or to me .
    “That’s not the point, Mátyás,” Sebastian said. “Your mother tried to kill me.”
    Mátyás sat up, clearly excited by the news. He wasn’t winning any points with his father, however, whose face grew darker.
    “I can’t believe it,” Mátyás said happily. “You’re suggesting she was strong enough to try to hurt you?”
    “You sound a little creepy when you say things like that, honey,” Izzy said drily, like she’d talked to him about this sort of thing before.
    “I still don’t get how she could do any of it dead,” William said, his eyes still on the board. My phone rang. “Livin’ La Vida Loca” again. “Oh, what now?” I was tempted to let it go, but I knew it had to be a wedding thing. What could be going wrong now? I took a few steps away from everyone, even though I could hear Sebastian telling Mátyás to cut the crap and start telling us what was going on with Teréza.
    It was the dress shop. They were calling to confirm that my bridesmaids’ dresses were salmon-pink taffeta. “No!” I shouted.
    “Silk. Ice blue.”
    I looked at Izzy. She was meant to be my maid of honor, and I’d picked a color that not only went with the season but that would also complement her skin tone. “The color is really important,” I explained, not to mention the fact that the style I’d chosen was a simple sheath that could be reused as a cocktail dress. The ones the shop described had a giant butt-bow. I moaned. They could replace them, but it would take time. “How long?”
    A couple of weeks, they thought. Maybe. “Maybe?” I repeated, horrified. “My wedding is in two weeks exactly .”
    They’d do their best. My hand was shaking when I slipped my phone back into my coat pocket. Lilith surged through my veins, a hot pulse at my throat.
    “All right, I’ve had it,” I snapped. Before I knew quite what I was doing, I’d swept Mátyás out of his chair. Balling his shirt in my fists, I shoved him hard against the bookcase. “What’s going