Retribution by Jilliane Hoffman Read Free Book Online Page A

had carpooled to St John’s Law School for the past three years, and Marie could not think of one time that Chloe had stood her up. No matter how late Marie had been in getting there.
    An elderly woman had buzzed her in the building, and Marie had practically sat on Chloe’s doorbell for the past five minutes. She knew that Chloe and Michael had gone out last night, and she initially thought that maybe he had spent the night and they had both overslept. That thought made her pause for a few moments and hope that Michael would not answer the door in his underwear. Coffee or no coffee, Marie certainly didn’t need to see that. But after five minutes there was still no response to the ringing bell, and Marie was getting more than anxious. She tried to peep in Chloe’s mail slot, but found that it was covered with something from the inside.
    She headed back outside and lit up a cigarette. Upstairs, behind his window, she saw Chloe’s strange neighbor staring down into the courtyard at her, black coffee cup in hand. He certainly was creepy, half naked, with those thick glasses and that weird sneer on his face. A chill ran through Marie’s body. She saw that Chloe’s front curtains were still drawn shut and her bedroom blinds closed. Her car was missing from its usual spot and Michael’s BMW was nowhere to be seen.
    Don ’ t panic. I ’ m sure it ’ s nothing.
    She padded around to the other side of the brick building to where Chloe’s kitchen window was. The window was closed, but the curtains were pulled back. The window towered above Marie’s 5’2” frame by another ten inches. She sighed. She had to work that afternoon and was dressed in a skirt and three-inch-high heels. She put down her purse, cursed herself under her breath for not picking out a pantsuit and flats, and crushed out her cigarette. She climbed up on to the brick half wall that ran adjacent to the kitchen window and gated off the steps to the building’s basement. Using a garbage can for leverage, she hoisted her husky frame up to the window, holding on to the sill for both dear life and for balance, and peered in. In front of her on the kitchen table was Pete, still covered in his cage. To her left was a pile of dishes in the sink. She could see through the kitchen doorway into the hallway and the living room, and saw the table was covered with newspapers. Marie immediately felt better. If the apartment had been clean, she would have known something was definitely wrong. It looked, instead, as if Chloe had never even come home last night.
    She must have stayed at Michael’s apartment and forgotten to call me. He probably dropped her off at class this morning with a hot cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and a Boston Cream doughnut and she’s now learning how to pass the bar and become a lawyer while I stand here with my fat ass flapping in the breeze peering into her dirty kitchen like a moron.
    Now she was annoyed. And she was going to be late for the practice test. She had begun her precarious descent down off the garbage can when a thought occurred to her. If Chloe had not come home last night, who had covered Pete ’ s cage? She paused for a moment, troubled by something else she thought she had spotted on the hall floor, just outside of the kitchen. Something in the back of her head forced her to turn around again for a closer look, and she pulled herself back up on the garbage can and placed her face up against the window. She cupped her hands around her eyes and squinted hard.
    It took several seconds before she recognized that the dark spots she was looking at were actually footprints. It was another several seconds before she realized that they looked like they were made in blood.
    That was when Marie Catherine Murphy fell off the garbage can and started to scream.

11
    We’ve got a pulse,’ a voice yelled out in the darkness. ‘And a beat.’
    ‘Is she breathing?’ Another voice.
    ‘Barely. I’ve got her on O2. She’s in