Don't Go Home by Carolyn Hart Read Free Book Online Page B

the evocation of a powerful alphamale. The fact that Eddie Olson was here revealed him as Kenny in the book. This gathering wasn’t loud, brash Eddie Olson’s milieu. In her occasional chats with him at parties or charity golf tournaments, he never mentioned books or reading, which usually came up since she was a bookseller. He never evinced any interest in Death on Demand. He could describe play by play the Citadel football games for the last twenty years. He talked about football, his latest golf score, football, the odds on the Kentucky Derby, football . . . He stood near a cash bar, gripping a drink. His heavy face was impassive. Burly and muscular, he stood with his feet apart, like a boxer balancing. Abruptly, he lifted the glass, drank the contents down, turned back toward the bar.
    Does Frances remember choking in the water . . .
    Another gender change, but Frances in the book was clearly a feminized George Griffith, fairly unkempt dark hair in loose curls, a little too much lipstick. George’s shaggy hair was dark and curly. He might have been a handsome teenager, but too many drinks over too many years had coarsened his features. Oddly he didn’t hold a glass in his hand tonight. Annie thought it might be the first time in a social situation with alcohol available that she had not seen a glass in his plump hand. He stood to one side of the path, his expression brooding. In the book Frances had been the lushly beautiful teenage girl, drunk, unsteady, clothes sopping, crying, “It wasn’t my fault. The mist. The bicycle came out of nowhere . . .”
    All of them were here to find out what Alex Griffith was going to say in his well-modulated, expressive voice. Would he read passages from the book, toy with those who were afraid, or did he intend to talk about himself? Annie suspected that in Alex’s world it was always all about him: how he saw everything, how nothing escaped him, how delicately and perfectly he could wring laughter or tears.
    A smug voice at her shoulder oozed pleasure. “I always wishedI’d lived in first-century Rome. What could be more thrilling than watching lions devour those tiresome Christians? This is the next-best thing. Love Lynn’s face. Pure Ibsen. Not quite as supercilious as she was at the last Friends meeting.” Two little sniffs followed. The sniffs were habitual, an annoying accompaniment that always concluded breathy observations.
    Annie didn’t turn to look. She knew the voice and the sniffs. “Hello, Warren.” Warren Foster was the kind of person who couldn’t be avoided in a small town. In his early thirties, though his fussy manner made him seem older, he lived on inherited money. He was ubiquitous on boards, at charity events, never missed a meeting of Friends of the Library. He knew everyone and absorbed gossip, innuendo, and outright slander with the delight of a connoisseur. His pale green eyes roved every gathering as he looked for hints of discord, acrimony, lust, or fear.
    â€œNow, now, Annie, don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. This may be the most exciting evening our little island has enjoyed in a long time. You may have missed the best part of the show, a delicious riff on foreplay. I’ve been watching them come and go for quite a while. Nervous as cats on a hot sidewalk.” Sniff sniff.
    Warren Foster moved nearer, leaned to murmur in her ear.
    Annie’s nose wrinkled at the heavy scent of peppermint.
    â€œJoan’s hopped up and down a half dozen times. Leland sits there and looks after her and I’ll bet a penny to a farthing—”
    Weedy Warren Foster was tall and a little stooped. Ever since a summer at Oxford, he’d affected day cravats (even Warren wouldn’t dare an ascot with a tweed jacket) and sprinkled Britishisms with abandon:
mum
for mother,
biscuit
for cookie,
bonnet
for hood. From the corner of her eye, she noted the