Lying in Wait (9780061747168) by Judith A. Jance Read Free Book Online

fine,” Else said. “I can drive myself home.”
    â€œNo, you can’t,” Alan replied.
    â€œWhy not?” Else argued with a sudden stubborn jut of her chin.
    With a deft movement, Alan reached across the table in front of her, snatched up the keys, and stuffed them in his shirt pocket.
    â€œBecause I said so,” he answered. “Because you’ve been drinking.” He turned to me. “When she’s ready to go, I’ll see to it that she gets home.”
    His manner of saying it made it clear that he meant every word. And considering the effect I remembered from drinking aquavit, not driving anywhere under its influence was probably a damned good idea. I gave that point to ChampagneAl. One missing ducktail wasn’t all that had changed about him.
    When I started back out on deck, Else stayed where she was while Alan walked with me as far as the rail. “She’ll be all right,” he said.
    I don’t know which one of us he was trying to convince, me or himself.
    â€œWhere will you be?” I asked. “Give me your address in case I need to get back to you as well.”
    â€œThis is the only address I have,” he answered.
    â€œYou’re living here on the boat? In the dead of winter?”
    â€œIt beats the hell out of where I was living before,” he said.
    I looked around at the ragtag wreck of a boat. I’m sure my skepticism showed.
    Alan Torvoldsen grinned and flipped his cigarette butt over the side into the water. “If you think this is bad,” he said, “you ought to try living on the streets.” And with that, Alan hurried back inside the galley, closing the door behind him.
    When I made it back out to the Mustang, Detective Danielson was already sitting in the driver’s seat of the idling car, but I didn’t see her at first. With one hand on the wheel, she was leaning across the car seat far enough to rummage in the glove compartment. When I opened the door, she slammed the glove box door shut in obvious disgust and sat up.
    â€œI thought every car on the force was supposed to come equipped with a damned street map,” she complained. “Somebody must have lifted it.”
    â€œWhy do we need a map? What’s up?”
    â€œAccording to Watty, we’re supposed to go see someone named Bonnie Elgin. I have her address right here. She lives on Perkins Lane, but where the hell is Perkins Lane? And how do we get there from here? Dispatch tells me it’s right off Emerson, but I don’t think Emerson goes all the way through.”
    That is an understatement if ever there was one. Sue Danielson was absolutely right. Emerson doesn’t go “through” to anywhere, at least not anywhere useful and not directly.
    Fishermen’s Terminal is off Emerson on one side of Magnolia Bluff. Perkins Lane—one of Seattle’s high-rent waterview property areas—is off Emerson on the other side of that selfsame bluff. It sounds easy enough, but between those two not-so-very-distant points, Emerson hopscotches around as though it were laid out by the proverbial drunken sailor. From what little I know about some of Seattle’s early surveyors, it probably was.
    I knew more about Magnolia than Sue Danielson did, and she settled down when I convinced her I could take us where we needed to go. Following my directions, she angled northwest on Gilman and Fort and then cut back down on Thirty-fourth Avenue West until it intersects with the westernmost section of West Emerson. No problem. In fact, it was totally straightforward.
    Except for one small, unforseen complication. I got lost along the way—not physically but mentally. The route I outlined took us almost all the way to Gay Street. And to Discovery Park. And to the scene of a long-ago murder—the one that had brought an unforgettable woman named AnneCorley across my path. Wearing a bright red dress and tossing her hair, she had