Dead Over Heels by Charlaine Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

get some books and videos to keep him amused, and I collected a few natural history books with plenty of gross pictures of frogs and snakes.
    My stomach was growling inelegantly at one o’clock when the library aide came to the children’s room to take my place. The aide was a heavy woman with pecan-colored skin named Beverly Rillington, who couldn’t be more than twenty-one. Whether it was because of race, age, or income level, Beverly and I were having a hard time geeing and hawing together. She and the previous children’s librarian had also had personality conflicts, Sam Clerrick had warned me. But Beverly, hired under a job-training program, was efficient and reliable, and Sam had no intention of letting her go.
    “How’s it going today?” Beverly asked. She looked down at me as though she didn’t really want to know.
    In an attempt to break the ice, I told Beverly about the morning story hour and the disconcerting answer I’d gotten from Irene.
    Beverly looked at me as though I should have known in advance I’d hear more than I bargained for. If Beverly made me anxious, terrified I might step on her many sensitive toes, I clearly waved a red flag in her face just by being who and what I was. Beverly never volunteered anything about her home life and did not respond to references to mine. Making contact with her was one of my projects for the year.
    (“I’m damned if I know why,” Martin had said simply, when I’d told him.)
    As I told Beverly good-bye and prepared to go home to see my husband off and be interviewed by Mr. Dryden, I found myself wondering why, too.
    But the answer came to me easily enough, in a string of reasons. Beverly was naturally good with kids, any kids, a knack God had left out of my genetic makeup. Beverly was never late and always completed her work, i’s dotted and t’s crossed. And, oh happy day, Lillian Schmidt was so terrified of Beverly that she avoided the children’s area like the plague when Beverly was at work. I owed my aide thanks on many levels, and I was determined to put up with a certain gruffness of manner for those reasons, if no others.

Chapter Three
     

    I ’d forgotten Martin had decided to drive to the airport directly from work. He’d leave his Mercedes at the plant and pick it up when he came in three days from now. The higher-ups of Pan-Am Agra had scheduled one of those events that made Martin’s blood curdle: a seminar on sexual harassment, recognition and avoidance thereof. All the plant managers were flying in to Chicago to attend, and since Martin had no particular friends among them and hated meetings he wasn’t chairing, his most positive attitude was grim acceptance.
    When he called me to say he was leaving for the airport, he reminded me over and over about setting the house security system every night. “How’s Angel?” he asked, just when he was about to hang up. “Shelby said she hadn’t been feeling well.”
    “Um. We’ll talk about it when you get back. She’s going to be fine.”
    “Roe, tell me. Is she well enough to help you if you have an emergency?”
    I was the only librarian in Lawrenceton, quite possibly in all of Georgia—perhaps even America—to have her own bodyguard. I thought of Angel, stunned and scared, in the doctor’s office that morning, and I thought of calling her for help. “Sure, she’s okay,” I said reassuringly. “Oh, by the way, I saw one of the—well, I don’t know exactly who Dryden and O’Riley work for . . . they never said—well, I ran into him this morning, and he says he has to come out here to talk to me this afternoon.”
    I’d almost said I’d met him at the doctor’s, when I’d taken Angel; and then Martin would have asked what the doctor had said, and I didn’t want to lie about it.
    “Why does he have to talk to you?” Martin asked.
    “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure.”
    “Roe, have Angel in the house with you when he’s there.”
    “Martin, she’s not