Lethal by Sandra Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

monumental betrayal. How dare she relish anything ever again, when Eddie was dead and buried?
    So she had saved articles of his clothing that held special memories for her, and by keeping them, kept her survivor’s guilt at bay.
    But she wasn’t about to discuss any of this psychology with Coburn. She was spared from having to say anything when Emily appeared.
    “Dora’s over and so’s Barney, and I’m hungry. Can we have lunch?”
    The kid’s question reminded Coburn that he hadn’t eaten anything in twenty-four hours except the two rich cupcakes. A search through the boxes from the attic would taketime. He would eat before tackling them. He motioned the widow into the kitchen.
    After clearing the cupcakes and bowl of frosting off the table, she fixed the kid a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He asked for one for himself and watched as she made it, afraid she might slip something into his. Ground-up sleeping pills, rat poison. He was short on trust.
    “You gotta wash your hands this time.” The kid placed a step stool with her name painted on it in front of the kitchen sink. She climbed onto it. Even standing on tiptoe, she was barely able to reach the taps, but somehow she managed to turn them on. “You can use my Elmo soap.”
    She picked up a plastic bottle with a bug-eyed red character grinning from the label. She squirted some liquid soap into her palm, then handed the bottle to him. He glanced at Honor and saw that she was watching them with apprehension. He figured that as long as she was nervous about his being close to the kid, she wasn’t going to try anything stupid.
    He and the kid washed their hands, then held them beneath the faucet to rinse.
    She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “Do you have an Elmo?”
    He shook the water off his hands and took the towel she passed him. “No, I don’t have a… an Elmo.”
    “Who do you sleep with?”
    Involuntarily, his gaze darted to Honor and made a connection that was almost audible, like the clack of two magnets. “Nobody.”
    “You don’t sleep with a friend?”
    “Not lately.”
    “How come?”
    “Just don’t.”
    “Where’s your bed? Does your mommy read you stories before you go to sleep?”
    He dragged his attention off Honor and back to the kid. “Stories? No, my mom, she’s… gone.”
    “So’s my daddy. He lives in heaven.” Her eyes lit up. “Maybe he knows your mommy in heaven!”
    Coburn snorted a laugh. “I doubt it.”
    “Are you scared of the dark?”
    “Emily,” Honor interrupted. “Stop asking so many questions. It’s rude. Come sit down and have your lunch.”
    They gathered around the table. The widow looked ready to jump out of her skin if he so much as said
boo
. She didn’t eat. Truth be told, he was as discomfited by this domestic scene as she was. Since being a kid, he’d never talked to one. It was weird, carrying on a conversation with such a little person.
    He scarfed the sandwich, then took an apple from the basket of fruit on the table. The kid dawdled over her food.
    “Emily, you said you were hungry,” her mother admonished. “Eat your lunch.”
    But he was a distraction. The kid never took her eyes off him. She studied everything he did. When he took the first crunching bite of the apple, she said, “I don’t like the peel.”
    He shrugged and said through a mouthful, “I don’t mind it.”
    “I don’t like green apples, either. Only red.”
    “Green’s okay.”
    “Guess what?”
    “What?”
    “My grandpa can peel an apple from the top to the bottom without it breaking. He says he likes to make a long curl of the peel, just like my hair. And guess what else.”
    “What?”
    “Mommy can’t do it because she’s a girl, and Grandpa says boys do it best. And Mommy doesn’t have a special magic knife like Grandpa’s.”
    “You don’t say.” He glanced across at Honor, who’d rolled her lips inward. “What kind of special magic knife does your grandpa have?”
    “Big. He