DEATH COMES TO AN OPEN HOUSE by Yvonne Whitney Read Free Book Online

for the Powers to initial the corrections.
    There were few parking spaces available in this townhouse community, but she found one and ran to the house, passing Theresa’s white Cadillac. Kevin must have had to park farther away. She rushed up the sidewalk and turned the doorknob. It wouldn’t move. She tried again. It was definitely locked. That was unusual. Theresa always welcomed anyone until she closed up. Jean knocked. There was no answer. Fortunately, it was the end townhouse, so, careful not to snag her clothes on the rambler roses consuming a trellis, she could walk around to the back door. It wasn’t even completely closed. A slight push revealed the all white kitchen they had previewed on Tuesday.
    A short distance from the door, the kitchen counter jutted into the center of the room. There lay the materials for buyers, bits of paper scattered over them. Moving closer, Jean could see they were pieces of torn business cards. Fear jumped from her stomach to her throat, but then retreated. Kevin was here to protect Theresa. This was like the second open where the killer had torn the agent’s cards and left. That would explain the open back door. There were only two floors in this townhouse. Kevin and Theresa must be upstairs, perhaps showing the house. Jean turned, walked to the end of the counter and took a few steps toward the living room. A dark spot came into view on the floor and she froze. It looked like the tip of a dark shoe. Like the tip of one of Theresa’s orthopedic, stubby-heeled shoes.
    Her father’s black shoes were the first things Jean had seen when she had opened the bathroom door and found her father. This was very different. Then, she had assumed a fall from which, of course, her father would recover. She had been wrong then. Now those torn cards created a far different assumption. There was no impulse to run to help, but rather a need to run back out the door to her safe little car. Then maybe call someone. She couldn’t do this again. Thoughts jumped haphazardly over each other.
    Is the killer in the house? Is Theresa really dead? Where is Kevin?
    She opened her mouth to yell for him, then stopped.
    If the killer is still here, I can’t yell. If Theresa is still alive, I must phone for help.
    I must.
    That obligation at last unlocked her. Jean quietly set her briefcase and purse on the counter and tip-toed past the familiar navy blue shoes. She heard a whimpering sound, but knew it wasn’t from the dark form stretched face down on the floor, feet next to her own, head at an awkward angle. The silver hair was pressed against the stove and obscuring the familiar face. It was impossible to see if the eyes were open, whether they could see the dark red drops splattered on the side of the white counter. Surely there was no need to feel for a pulse. There was too much blood. Theresa’s head lay in a pool of red, her neck and face and hair stained by it, the blue jacket shoulder now purple. It all had the same source: the slender, silver instrument imbedded in the side of Theresa’s neck.
    Dad!
    This thought, with all its associated emotions, engulfed her. Her father, dead on the white and black tile floor of their bathroom. The only other dead body she had ever seen. Stop it! she ordered, but the image of her father kept flashing in her mind as she stared at Theresa. Jean put a hand over her mouth, afraid of the churning in her stomach. She had run to her father to find some sign of life. That was what she should do now. But there had been no blood then. Nor had there been this smell, sweet and nauseating. It took a lot of blood to smell like this. Theresa must be dead, too. Was there an obligation to make sure? Not possible to let Theresa die while she stood watching.
    There was barely room to walk along the left side of the dark form. Her heart pounding so hard her fingertips tingled, swallowing constantly to keep down the cookies and juice she had shared with the Powers, Jean moved slowly