Quiet as the Grave by Kathleen O`Brien Read Free Book Online Page A

heard of Justine’s death. How could she have been such a bitch? To Suzie, Justine was little more than a bitter memory,a cartoon caricature of aggressive breasts and predatory lips.
    To this man Justine had been life itself.
    â€œHello, Mayor,” Suzie said, about ten times as gently as she’d intended to. Mayor Millner had treated Suzie like dirt in the old days, and she’d been looking forward to a little payback. But that was unthinkable now.
    He came into the room. His left arm seemed to be trembling, and he held it close to his side.
    â€œThank you for coming,” he said. “I wouldn’t have recognized you. You look lovely.”
    She ignored the barb. Though she knew it hadn’t been intentional, it was true. She hadn’t been exactly “lovely” back in her high school days. She’d gone out of her way to avoid it. She’d been making a statement, or so she’d thought.
    Mostly, she knew now, she’d just been hiding behind it.
    â€œI know this must be a terrible time for your family,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
    â€œThank you.” His eyes, watery from the beginning, glistened in the light from the bay window. “It’s been a two-year nightmare, but in my heart I’ve always known she was dead. She would never have put her mother through this.”
    Suzie nodded, though she wasn’t quite as certain about that. In the past, Justine had rarely seemed to concern herself with the fallout from her outrageous behavior. But she had to allow that perhaps Justine’s parents knew her better than Suzie did.
    â€œWhy did you want to see me, Mayor?”
    She couldn’t imagine calling him anything else, though he wasn’t the mayor of Firefly Glen anymore,she’d heard. When Justine disappeared, he had resigned that job and come to live alone here, in this house, for eighteen months, looking for his daughter and waiting for her to come home.
    She wondered if that haunted him now, knowing that, every time he walked down to the lake, he had passed within feet of Justine’s dead body.
    If Suzie had ever needed proof that there was no such thing as ghosts, this would be it. Surely Justine’s ghost would have called out to her father as he tromped by, supervising the divers who dragged Tuxedo Lake.
    â€œI need you to help me,” Mayor Millner said with more force than Suzie had seen yet. “I want justice for my daughter.”
    Something invisible skittered down Suzie’s spine on tiny cold feet. What was he talking about? Did he think she had done something to Justine? Exactly how crazy had grief left this guy?
    â€œJustice?”
    â€œYes. I want that bastard Mike Frome arrested, but the police say they don’t have enough evidence.”
    Suzie frowned. “Mike? You think Mike killed Justine?”
    â€œI don’t think he did. I know he did. And I’m going to make him pay for it, if it’s the last thing I do. I need you to help me.”
    â€œMayor Millner, I don’t think—”
    â€œHe did it, damn it. He never loved her. He just used her, and then, when he got caught, he had to marry her. He never gave a damn about her except as a plaything.”
    The tears she’d seen in his eyes a minute ago had been replaced by a fanatical gleam. She had a cowardly urge to just turn and get the heck out of here,but she forced herself to remain calm. Maybe she could make him see reason.
    Mike hadn’t loved Justine when he married her, that much was definitely true. Suzie had been with Mike the night he found out Gavin was his son, and that he would have to marry Justine. A sheltered Firefly Glen teenager, Mike Frome had been faced with the first problem so big his rich, loving family couldn’t fix it, and it had damn near broken his heart. He’d sat on the floor of her kitchen and cried like a child.
    She had thought back on that night often, and wished she had been