Key Trilogy by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

personal things. Her lifetime, career-wise, fit into a single storage box.
    That was efficient again, practical. And, Malory decided, pathetic.
    Everything was going to be different now, and she wasn’t ready. She had no plan, no outline, no list for what came next. She wouldn’t be getting up tomorrow, eating a light, sensible breakfast, dressing for work in the outfit carefully selected tonight.
    Day after day without purpose, without plan, stretched out in front of her like some bottomless canyon. And the precious order of her life was strewn somewhere down there in the void.
    It terrified her, but marching along with the fear waspride. So, she repaired her makeup and kept her chin up, her shoulders back, as she carried the box out of the office and down the stairs. She did her best to muster up a smile when Tod Grist rushed to the base of the stairs.
    He was short and trim, clad in his signature black shirt and pants. Two tiny gold hoops glinted in his left earlobe. His hair was a shoulder-length streaky-blond, which Malory had always envied. The angelic face that it framed drew middle-aged and elderly ladies like the sirens’ song drew sailors.
    He’d started at The Gallery the year after Malory arrived and had been her friend, confidant, and bitching partner ever since.
    “Don’t go. We’ll kill the bimbo. A little arsenic in her morning latte and she’s history.” He grabbed at the storage box. “Mal, love of my life, you can’t leave me here.”
    “I got the boot. A month’s severance, a pat on the head, and a pack of homilies.” She fought to keep the tears from blurring her vision as she looked around the lovely, wide foyer, the streams of filtered light spilling over the glossy oak floor. “God, what am I going to do tomorrow when I can’t come here?”
    “Aw, baby. Here, give me that.” He took the box, gave her a little nudge with it. “Outside, so we can blubber.”
    “I’m not going to blubber anymore.” But she had to bite her lip when it quivered.
    “I am,” he promised and kept nudging until she was out the door. He set the box down on one of the iron tables on the pretty covered porch, then flung his arms around her. “I can’t stand it! Nothing’s going to be the same without you here. Who will I gossip with, who’ll soothe my broken heart when some bastard breaks it? You notice this is all about me.”
    He made her laugh. “You’ll still be my best bud, right?”
    “Sure I will. You’re not going to do something crazy, like move to the city?” He eased back to study her face.“Or fall in with bad companions and work in a strip mall gift shop?”
    A lead weight landed— ka-boom —in her stomach. Those were the only two reasonable choices she had if she was going to make a living. But because he looked as if he might cry, she waved them away to bolster him. “Perish the thought. I don’t know what I’m going to do, exactly. But I’ve got this thing—” She thought of her odd evening, and the key. “I’ll tell you about it later. I’ve got something to keep me occupied for a while, then . . . I don’t know, Tod. Everything’s out of kilter.”
    Maybe she was going to blubber a little after all. “Nothing’s the way it’s supposed to be, so I can’t see how it will be. Getting fired was not in the Malory Price Life Plan.”
    “It’s just a blip,” he assured her. “James is in some sort of sexual haze. He could still come to his senses. You could sleep with him,” he added, inspired. “I could sleep with him.”
    “I have one thing to say to both of those suggestions. Ick.”
    “Profound, and true. How about if I come by tonight, bring you Chinese and a cheap bottle of wine?”
    “You’re a pal.”
    “We’ll plot Putrid Pamela’s demise and plan your future. Want me to walk you home, sweetie pie?”
    “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. Give me time to clear my head. Say good-bye to . . . everybody. I just can’t face it now.”
    “Don’t you