Pouncing on Murder by Laurie Cass Read Free Book Online

you in?”
    “Numbers,” he said, shifting a little in his chair. “I’m an accountant. And yes, you’d think I could manage tosit at a computer while recovering from heart surgery, but they don’t want me working for at least two months.”
    I thought about how that much enforced inactivity would mess with my head and reached into the pile of books for Atlas Shrugged . “Eight weeks should give you enough time to read this.”
    He looked at the heft of the book. Laughed, then winced and sighed. “Forty-one years old,” he said, “and I’m a mess. I can’t work for two months, and I’ve been self-employed since we moved north, so that means no income for probably three months. I have medical bills up the wazoo thanks to our crappy health insurance, and my wife is working two jobs to make ends meet.”
    My heart ached for him, but there wasn’t anything I could say that would help, so I just sat.
    He sighed again, then put on a fake smile. “But I’ll get better, right? And at least I found out about this congenital heart condition I didn’t know I had.”
    “Alive is almost always better than dead,” I agreed.
    His mouth twisted. “Yeah. I could have ended up like Henry.”
    I blinked. “You mean Henry Gill?”
    Adam blinked back. “You knew him?”
    “He was a regular. I first knew him at the library, but when the bookmobile started up, he decided it was easier to let the books come to him instead of him going to the books.”
    Adam’s smile was faint. “Sounds like Henry. I was there . . .” His voice faded away to nothing.
    I didn’t understand, and then suddenly I did. “You were there the day Henry died?”
    “Yeah,” he said quietly.
    “That must have been awful.”
    “Yeah.”
    We sat there, each thinking things that were probably similar, thoughts along the lines of sudden death, of pain and suffering and tasks left undone, of tender feelings never spoken and wonderful places never visited.
    “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
    Adam shook his head, then started talking. “I met Henry early last summer. I’d gone out for a long bike ride and was in the far southeast corner of the county, you know, where the land isn’t quite as hilly but there are all those little lakes?”
    I nodded, but he wasn’t paying attention to me, he was back in time, watching his memory spin out.
    “There must have been some glass in the road or who knows what? I ended up with a really flat tire, so I stopped on the side of the road to fix the tube.” He gave a wry smile. “I’d checked my patch kit before I left, but I hadn’t made sure the glue was still good. Stuff was hard as a rock.”
    My knowledge of bike tube repair was hazy, but even I knew that hard glue was bad. “What did you do?”
    “I didn’t do anything.” Adam grinned. “I was sitting there, staring at the tire, feeling like an idiot. I had my cell phone, but Irene was at work and there wasn’t anyone I could call.”
    This, I knew, was what often happened when people moved north. New folks would have a few friends, usually coworkers and neighbors, but it could take a long time to forge relationships that allowed you to callsomeone half a county away to come save you from your own stupidity.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    “Henry,” Adam said promptly. “He was out in that beater pickup of his. He slowed down, took a good look at me, and stopped. Asked where I lived, and when I said, he gave that grunt of his, you know?”
    I certainly did.
    “Anyway, he said he’d drop me off at my house, then told me to put my bike in the bed of his truck.”
    I smiled, knowing what was coming.
    “Took Henry fifteen minutes to get it strapped down the way he wanted. I told him it wasn’t an expensive bike and not to worry about it, but he said driving with an unsecured load was dangerous.” He smiled. “Then we got into the truck and headed southeast.”
    “Um . . .”
    “Yeah,” Adam said. “The opposite direction from here.