Frozen Stiff by Mary Logue Read Free Book Online Page B

started to figure it out and a smoothness entered him. He felt like he could play the game forever.
    When he finally got killed again, he pulled his gaze away from the monitor and glanced over at the clock radio by Andy’s bed. “It’s really after four o’clock?”
    “Time flies when you’re crushing the bad guys.” Andy laughed.
    “I gotta go, man.”
    “Hear ya,” Andy didn’t even look at him, still focusing on the game.
    “Cool game,” Curt said.
    “Yeah, back at ya.”
    Curt laughed. When it was just the two of them, they threw the hip-hop slang at each other. Just for fun. Just to try it out. “Round.”
    “Yeah, later.”
    Curt reluctantly stood up. As he unfolded his body from the bean bag, he couldn’t believe he had been sitting in the same position for over three hours. Amazing how time went by when you were trying to steal a bunch of cars!
    Then it hit him—he remembered Meg and the movie they were going to see. He was supposed to be at her house right now; she had wanted to grab something to eat before the movie. He thought of completely blowing her off, rather than going over there now and facing her. It would not be pretty. She was not going to let him forget this.
    4:30 pm
    Amy walked slowly through the house one last time and didn’t see anything else jump out at her.
    As far as she could tell, Dan Walker hadn’t had a guest last night, but had, in fact, celebrated the new year alone. Unless that person didn’t eat, drink, smoke, or leave anything behind. Maybe they had cleaned up after themselves, although seeing the mess in the sink, she didn’t see how that would be possible.
    She walked up to the bank of windows on the main floor and stared outside at the top of the trees. Even in the warmth of the house, she could tell how cold it was outside. The trees moved differently, more rigidly, like they would snap if youtouched them. And the snow had a brittle quality. When it was blown up by the wind, it swirled in a tight tornado of sharp shards. Dangerous weather.
    Amy didn’t want to go back outside. She wanted to lay down on the Berber carpet and sleep. What she really wanted to do was turn on the sauna, take all her clothes off, and sit in that small cedar room until her bones melted.
    When she turned away from the windows, she saw a stack of papers tucked on a shelf under the coffee table. They looked legal. She pulled them out and glanced over them.
    “Purchase agreement,” it read across the top of the page. She scanned the first sheet and saw the name of Edna Gordon, then the block and lot numbers of her farm. What was this about?
    Amy realized what she was holding in her hands was an agreement for Daniel Walker to buy the Gordon farm. For a chunk of change, but, by what she knew about the real estate market, not quite what it was worth, even though the market wasn’t as good as it had been.
    She couldn’t believe that Walker had been able to talk Edna into selling the family farm.
    Amy had a hard time believing that John Gordon would have let that land go under any circumstances. From the little she knew of their situation, John was actually working other jobs just to keep the farm together. She heard he had gone south to work in construction this winter. Maybe it had all gotten to be too much for him. Maybe the agreement was totally legit.
    Or maybe Daniel Walker had sweet-talked Edna into selling the farm when John hadn’t been around, maybe he had given someone else a good reason to want him dead.

CHAPTER 7
    4:30 pm
    R ich finished making a bed of straw for Meg’s goat. A stray cat wound around his legs. The scrawny creature had made a home for himself in the barn and Rich had bought a bag of cat food to feed him. This morning when he had come out to the barn, he had found the goat and the cat curled up together.
    As he stood, he felt his back twinge. Time to take a break. Rich decided to treat himself at Le Pain Perdu to a French donut or two and a cup of coffee. He