Slow Heat by Lorie O'Clare Read Free Book Online Page B

the state of California in order to be a bounty hunter,” she said, reciting the words she’d already rehearsed for when he told her he couldn’t do this. Granted, he hadn’t said no yet. But she was ready to challenge him so he would say yes. “Which means if you wanted, you could investigate this for me.”
    He said nothing. Maggie sighed. “May I come over and discuss this with you?”
    “That’s fine.” Micah hung up.
    “Fine,” she grumbled. “Don’t say bye.” But she already knew he wasn’t blessed with manners. This also meant he knew she had his address, which they’d given her in the KFA office. So he’d already talked to them and knew she’d be calling. “And that tells me he was intentionally rude.”
    Her stomach twisted into a ball of nerves as she drove through traffic and across the interstate toward Micah’s home in Santa Monica. Although raised in LA, this was a town Maggie wasn’t overly familiar with. Her friends used to rave about the roller-coaster rides on the beach, and all the shopping they’d done after going to the amusement parks. Maggie had always worked after school, then there was college. Now she worked even harder. No roller-coaster rides for her.
    She relied on Google Maps on her phone to make sure she didn’t get lost. So when her phone rang, Maggie glanced nervously up and down a strip mall as she pulled off the road and into its parking lot and stopped her car. Over half the shops in the mall had gone under; boards covering windows were spray-painted with bright graffiti. She prayed they weren’t gang signs and that she hadn’t parked on some gang’s turf just so she could answer her phone.
    “Hello, Mom,” she answered and realized if she told her mother to hurry up because she didn’t like where she’d parked, her mother would want to know why. She couldn’t exactly tell her that she couldn’t read Google Maps on her phone and talk on it at the same time. Her mother would then want to know where she was going.
    “Will you be home soon?” her mother asked.
    “Sure. Why?”
    “Deidre and Bernie are here.”
    “They are?” Maggie saw her older sister Deidre more often than her other brothers and sisters since she lived the closest. But Bernie, her younger brother, had been on the road with his band for almost a year. “I didn’t even know Bernie was in LA.”
    “We found out earlier today. I just got off the phone with Annalisa.”
    Maggie’s radar went up instantly. “What are you doing, Mom?”
    Annalisa never talked to her parents, not since they’d made a scene in front of her boyfriend because he was black. Maggie talked to her baby sister from time to time, but for the most part Annalisa had cut all ties with the family.
    “Aiden just showed up. And I’m making my famous sausage meatballs,” her mom informed her, neatly avoiding the real meaning behind Maggie’s question.
    Maggie groaned. She wouldn’t set her mom off. Maggie couldn’t remember the last time her entire family had been under one roof. There was only one reason why they would all be there on such short notice. “Did you tell everyone the police talked to me, Mom?”
    “Everyone is worried about you, sweetheart. As they should be. We’re family and we stick together when something bad happens.” Her mother lowered her voice as she continued. “And yes, I told your brothers and sisters. Of course, everyone is worried about your Uncle Larry, too.”
    Suddenly it all made sense. Her mother was doing this for her father. Maggie’s dad hated all of his children being so spread apart. If the world rotated on its axis the way John O’Malley would have it, all of his children would be on the same block they lived on and cranking out grandbabies for him to spoil. Her parents had fought terribly after Maggie got home from the police station. It had made Maggie sick. Her mother’s health wasn’t great in the best of times, and she’d looked seriously run-down the past day