Lucky in Love by Kristen Brockmeyer Read Free Book Online Page B

tell me if they're right. "
    I rattled them off and after an interminable two seconds, he agreed that they were in fact the winning numbers—the only winning numbers for that drawing—and his voice sounded marginally more interested
    "Then, James, I need you to tell me how the hell to get to your office."
    I grabbed my purse, pulled on my shoes, locked the door and clattered down the steps. The blue car was still parked across the street. I sprinted to the driver's side window. Fisher, a slim-looking brown-haired guy in jeans and a black t-shirt shirt rolled his window down quickly.
    "What's wrong?" He asked, concerned. He reached for the door handle.
    "Nothing," I said breathlessly. "I just have to go. You can leave now. Thanks!"
    I left him staring after me, reaching for his phone, and ran back across the street. Let him tattle to the FBI, I thought. I had things to do. My car was parked in the driveway. Luckily, my neighbors all had afternoon classes, so I wasn't blocked in, because I sure would have driven my Buick over their cars like a Sherman tank.
     
    I made the hour-long drive to the lottery headquarters in 36 minutes, losing Fisher shortly after I got on I-69 heading to Lansing. A half-hour later, James Smith was photographing me with a gigantic check.  Since I was there alone, someone else from the lottery office had to hold up the other end of it. Soon after that I was sitting in the Roadmaster, the engine still ticking from my insane drive there, in a daze.
    I started the car again and backed slowly and carefully out of my parking spot. Being worth roughly 78 million and some change, which was what I had left after the cash option I had opted for and the removal of Uncle Sam's hefty bite, I couldn't afford to die in a car accident. Not until I wrote up a will, anyway.
    I'd talked the lottery people into holding off the official winner press release until the funds were transferred, which would take about 10 days, to give myself time to plan my next move before relatives and friends I didn't have started crawling out of the woodwork. But wouldn't the snippy girl at the credit union—the one who always gave me a hard time when I overdrafted—be surprised to see my balance when that money hit my checking account?
    I made it home without incident and spent all the money in my head on the way. I was bouncing up my rickety front stairs, planning how to buy back Julian's house, when I saw a black fedora hat pinned to my front door with one of my antique letter openers.
    My rollercoaster luck had lurched into a downswing again.
     
     
     
    Chapter 11
     
    For a second, I just stared at the hat as my brain struggled to switch gears. Julian had a pretty bizarre sense of humor sometimes, but this was definitely not his brand of weird. A cold ball of dread settled into my gut.
    I tried to pull the hat off the door, but it was stuck tight. I gripped the letter opener harder.
    I didn't realize my teeth were bared and my breath was coming in harsh pants as I wrestled the hat free. When I did, and a piece of paper that had been pinned under the hat fluttered down. I grabbed it before the gusty wind could catch it, and picked up the letter opener gingerly with two fingers, out of a belated concern of preserving fingerprints.  Stuffing the fedora under my arm, I dug in my purse for my keys, but as I did, my shoulder bumped the door and it swung open.
    What. The. Hell.
    I darted a look over my shoulder for any suspicious white vans, and seeing nothing, my fear shifted abruptly into Grade A, duck-and-cover, white hot rage. Someone had taken my friend's hat, stabbed a letter opener in my front door, broken into my apartment, and then had the nerve to leave a note. Someone was gonna get it if they were still in there. I flipped the letter opener around so the business end pointed forward and gripped the handle with steely purpose. If it could be stabbed in the door, it could jab into a person just fine.
    I flicked the light