Portrait of a Dead Guy by Larissa Reinhart Read Free Book Online Page A

cash.
    Ronny nodded. “You come see me when you’re ready. I’m surprised that truck’s still holding together. The Japanese really know how to build them, don’t they?”
    “Yes, sir.” I shuffled my feet and edged back. “Guess I should be getting to work.”
    My stomach rumbled low and long, reminding me I had not fed it breakfast. A quick glimpse at my watch showed it far past lunch.
    “And what are you doing here, Luke? Keeping guard over the coffin?” Ronny chuckled. “Going to stay here all day?”
    “Maybe,” Luke grumbled. “Just taking a break from all the company.”
    “Remember I’m company, too,” said Shawna, giving Luke a playful push.
    I groaned aloud and tried to cover the sound with a cough.
    “Of course, I didn’t expect Shawna to be at the house,” Luke snuck a hard look at me while directing his answer to Ronny. “When did I last see you, Shawna?”
    “Oh goodness me,” said Shawna, “I can’t rightly say. Years and years ago.”
    I slapped a hand over my mouth, but the snort ripped through me anyway. I mean, who talks like that? If Luke fell for that kind of crap, he had changed a lot more than I thought.
    I returned to the easel. Ronny slipped to the far wall after me. He gripped the edge of the coffin, riveted on Dustin. I laid a hand on Ronny’s back.
    “Are you okay, Mr. Price? I guess you’ve known Dustin since he was little. This must be hard for you.”
    “Thank you, hon’,” he said. “It’s hard to believe.” Slipping out from under my hand, he sped out the room.
    “Poor guy,” I said, turning back to Luke and Shawna. With a disgusted grunt, I snatched my drawings from Shawna’s light fingers.
    Oblivious to Shawna’s snooping, Luke stood with his arms crossed, watching Ronny’s retreat. It seemed Dustin’s troubled character made his death as difficult as his life. This commission positioned me on the edge of the Branson-Harper mire. I had my own family bogs to wade through, and they weren’t much prettier than the Bransons’.
    But other people’s problems are sure a lot more interesting than your own.
    Thirty minutes later I gave up my attempts to sketch. Shawna and Luke found my last nerve and worked together to snap it, standing in a corner, reminiscing about Eagle football victories between Shawna’s catty comments on my ability to capture Dustin’s likeness on paper. Besides, I was starving.
    I packed up my tackle box, grabbed my sketch book, and strode out the door. Luke followed, though we didn’t speak. When I pulled out of the drive, I glimpsed him leaning against his pickup, watching me. A shiver ran through me, and I squashed it.
    I had no business thinking about Luke or his dimples. The whole Dustin situation didn’t sit well with me. He acted the teeniest bit odd.
    My stomach gurgled, drowning the blast of the radio. I turned off the main road onto Highway 19 toward my family’s farm and checked my rear view for the large grill of a black truck. I’d be lying if I said memories of Luke hadn’t crossed my mind a time or two over the years. However, after the Las Vegas fiasco, I vowed to abstain from men.
    Luke made me stupid, and I hated stupid. Todd was temporary insanity and harmless. Luke was dangerous.
    I scrunched my face and eased the accelerator until the engine knocking quieted. I detested restrictions. Even self-imposed ones.
    He might be dangerous, but Luke didn’t scare me.
    Therein lay the problem.

     

FOUR

     
    Pulling into the farm could be trickier than holding onto the bottom lane at Bristol Motor Speedway. With the right signal blinking, the Datsun idled before the gravel turn. I scanned the rutted drive. My eyes cast across the weedy foreground with its smattering of chewed forsythia toward the split in the lane leading to a rusty roofed barn.
    Empty.
    The other fork led to a little ranch house with a tacked on screened porch and crumbling flowerbeds. The house hid behind a thick ancient oak and an overgrown