Melody Burning by Whitley Strieber Read Free Book Online Page A

You’ll go back in.”
    And, as Frank knew all too well, this time it would be for good.
    So he was being given a choice: kill people and risk being executed, or refuse to do it and spend the rest of his life in prison, convicted of using forged documents to escape.
    He sucked breath. Life in prison for certain against the possibility of a death sentence. A certainty against a possibility.
    He made his choice.
    “You’re gonna get your work done, sir. Just like you want it done.”
    Szatson smiled. Somehow the brightness of his teeth made the deal even more terrifying.
    Back in his car, Frank sat for a long time. “So what happens to me?” he muttered into the silence. “What happens to me then?”
    The answer was, Szatson went on down the road amassing his billions, and a little guy like Frank—well, maybe he got something, and maybe he didn’t.
    As he angled his car down into the city streets, he felt the tightness of frustration constricting his throat. Stopping at a light on Franklin, he watched a bunch of kids from Hollywood High School cross the street and head toward Starbucks.
    When the light changed, he found that his foot had been pressing the brake so hard that it had cramped in the arch.
    He drove on back to the Beresford with one thought in mind: the creep who was using the shafts was about to find out that when you got an unexpected push, the fall was long and the landing hard.

C HAPTER 8

    W e’re in the middle of a media frenzy, and I’m totally thrown, I have to say. It’s over Alex, of course. I should have expected it, but I didn’t. I woke up this morning thinking only about the creep on the roof, then Lupe, who cleans our place, called to say the doorman wouldn’t let her in because he thought she was with the reporters.
    Now I’m gonna have to do a papi walk just to get out of the building. It makes me wish I could fly, and suddenly a new song is in my mind, “Flying on Forever.” Every kid in the world will understand this song, I know it.
    I’m still thinking about the unbelievable fight we had. The worst ever, I think.
    We meet in the front hall, and the first words out of Mom’s mouth are, “You look wonderful .” She’s trying to make up, but I still can’t.
    Now the doorbell rings, and Julius is here. The super, Frank, is with him.
    “We’re ready to move,” Julius says, and Frank goes, “I’ve got the back entrance open, and we have security in the lobby to make it look like you’re about to come through.”
    “We want to go through the lobby,” Mom says.
    “ Mom! ” But she’s right. Of course we do.
    So I stand in silence as the elevator goes down.
    Frank says, “Mrs. McGrath, we have that other situation under control.”
    “Thank you.”
    I would never tell Mom that I saw him on the roof last night, because she would go totally insane if she knew I’d been up there. She’d put armed guards in the stairwell.
    I don’t think I wanted to jump. I don’t know. Maybe what I wanted was to fly.
    The doors open—and there, in the middle of the hungry crowd, the first thing I see is the grinning face of this tiny woman with huge glasses who says, “Melody, I’m Amber. From People ?”
    Then a papi I don’t know says, “Melody, is it true you do meth, too? That the cops are covering for you?”
    “Amber,” Mom says, taking her by the arm as we go through the camera clickathon, “you were supposed to call!”
    We’re an entourage now, me and Mom and Julius and Frank and Amber. Not a big entourage, maybe, but enough to make me appear to be the star.
    Shouted question: “Melody, is Swingles totally dead?”
    “Nothing is ever totally dead,” Mom yells back.
    “How do you feel about Alex going to jail?”
    For a second, I’m thrown. What is this about jail ?
    “Did he rape you, Melody?”
    Then we are outside under the marquee and the limo is there. Thank God.
    The limo smells like bacon, and I discover that we have a nice breakfast waiting—scrambled