Killer Smile by Lisa Scottoline Read Free Book Online Page B

of him. He was a simple man whose world was small, yet perfect. Wife Theresa. Son Tony. Growing business. Three boats. He had his family and his fishing. Love and work. Rich by any standard, even Freud’s. She opened the billfold in the wallet, where money would be kept.
    A thick stack of white papers nestled inside, and she slid them out. They were five pieces of scrap paper, and on each were a series of drawings. The drawings were of a circle of some sort, with a tiny bump on the side. Each page had several different views of the circle, drawn with a crude pencil. There was no writing on it, not even in Italian. The circle drawing was repeated at least twenty times. Was that obsessive? Not really. When Mary doodled, she’d usually draw the same things over and over; her name, a pair of large eyes, or for some reason, a ballet slipper. But she wondered about it, with Amadeo. Was it an early sign of depression? And why did he keep it in his wallet?
    For no reason, she held the papers up to the lamp, so the light shone through. There was no watermark or secret inks. It told her nothing more, which was the problem with things you do for no reason. But they were drawings of Amadeo’s, Mary felt sure. It was the only tangible thing she had seen — apart from his
X
mark on the registration card — that had actually come from him. That he had touched.
    She found herself closing her hand around the paper, then opening it again. She thought of her mother in the kitchen, playing hand tricks with the steam. She couldn’t help but feel that she was closer to Amadeo, connected to him, and she admitted to herself that Judy had been right. It was as if she had a crush on Amadeo, not because he reminded her of George Clooney, but because he reminded her of Mike. She didn’t know if Mike had gotten justice and she didn’t know if Amadeo could either, but the confused tangle in her heart told her she had to try. She slid the papers back in the billfold, closed the wallet, and snapped it shut. Then she gathered the photos, set them neatly back in her briefcase, and switched off the light.
    Mary lay back in bed alone, as she had almost every night since Mike had died, except for one love affair that hadn’t worked out. She had changed apartments, hit thirty, and still didn’t own a house. She didn’t even have a cat anymore and had grown used to being on her own, kept company at night by Jay Leno, HBO, the Discovery Channel, Lifetime, or at last resort, Paid Programming. She had grown so accustomed to being on her own that it didn’t feel lonely anymore. It was just the state of things. Her friends would send her on blind dates, and she would go because it was easier than resisting, but being alone wasn’t so terrible. She was a single girl, and it felt like enough. Especially with cable.
    Her room was dark except for the orange rectangle glowing from the Westclox and a white slice of the moon, so bright it shone through an opening in the curtain. She tried to ignore it but couldn’t, so she climbed out of bed and trundled to the window. She pulled the curtain closed just as she saw a dark Escalade leave a parking space across the street and drive away.
    Mary blinked. Which one of her neighbors had an Escalade? None that she knew of. It looked like the same car she’d seen the other day, on Mercer Street. What was going on? She couldn’t decide if she was being paranoid.
    The dangerous ones, the truly murderous ones, lie in wait. And then, when the moment’s right, they strike.
    Mary tried to banish the voice, but couldn’t. She returned to bed and climbed under the comforter, her body stiff with a bad feeling.
    The bad feeling was fear.
----
    ----

Seven
     
    First thing Monday morning, Mary stopped by Frank Cavuto’s law office to take him the FBI memo that she, Judy, and Saint Anthony had found. She sat across his desk in a slippery leather chair, waiting for him to finish reading it. Frank’s shave was so fresh she could