Stalking Death by Kate Flora Read Free Book Online Page B

you in the morning."
    He said a polite goodnight. She stared through me like I wasn't there. I thought of Suzanne, my partner, now a headmaster's wife herself. She would never intrude into Paul's business like this, however much they might have discussed it in private. Nor, should she ever be drawn in, would she forget her manners because her nose was out of joint. Fierce, formidable and icy though she was, Miriam Chambers had many of the qualities of an ill-mannered child. And both of them, polite and impolite, were showing the strain of holding things back.
    I stood in the dark parking lot, watching them through the window, huddling together at his desk, wishing I could read minds. Unconsciously, I formed my hand into a gun, aimed, and fired. She staggered backward, her hand at her chest. But it was something he'd said, not what I'd done. I turned away and clicked the unlock button.
    My instinct for impending disaster told me to drive straight home. Back to security and normalcy and Andre. Especially back to Andre. It warred with the businesswoman in me, which told me to stay and soldier through or people would stop calling me for cases like this. It also warred with the part that, like a bloodhound, was on the scent of something and wanted to follow it. The self that relished the challenge of a difficult case.
    Overarching it all was an ironic detachment, born of having lived too long on the cusp of danger, which saw the whole thing cinematically. Like in one of those volcano movies, on the surface, everything was placid and normal, with an everyday set of problems to be dealt with. I walked on grass and asphalt on a peaceful New England boarding school campus, breathing air scented with wood smoke. Underneath, masked by this benign surface, violence and danger roiled like molten lava, waiting to explode.
    "Oh, get over yourself, Kozak, ," I mumbled as I started the engine. "It's just a job ."

Chapter 5

    Craig Dunham was a Todd Chambers clone, though I doubted either man knew it. A big, preppy, confident man with Chambers' slightly supercilious air and enough starch in his bright pink, orange and blue striped shirt to hold him up should his own body ever fail. He had the annoying habit of looking past me, as though he was still waiting for the 'real' consultant to arrive. I didn't know what my failing was. It could have been gender, or age, or the fact that I'm inappropriately sized for a woman. Men are sometimes disconcerted to find that we see eye-to-eye. At least, in the literal sense.
    I'd come to my meeting with him straight from a sterile and cold—in the interpersonal sense—breakfast with the Chambers. It was clear he hadn't married her for her cooking. People in New England joke about the Brattle Street and Beacon Hill fathers sneaking out in the evening for a burger after one of their wives' meager feeds, and we've all heard those stories about the Yankee millionaires trying to feed six people on a pound of meat. Miriam Chambers, though clearly not old Yankee herself, had embraced that style with a vengeance.
    She'd presented me with one sad and lonely egg, quivering on the wide expanse of empty plate next to a decrusted piece of pallid white toast and a single strip of limp bacon. Hungry as I was, it had seemed downright cruel to molest those lonely bits of food. I wondered how he kept his big, robust body running on such a slender allotment. Probably made it his duty to check out the dining halls on a regular basis. There had been American coffee, too, the kind you can read through. Six quick cups might cause a slight buzz, but then you're committed to spending the rest of the morning in the bathroom.
    I didn't know why they'd asked me to breakfast, since the talk was as spare as the meal. I could have lingered at The Swan, feasted on quiche, homemade muffins, fresh fruit and heaps of bacon and sausage, and been a happier person. I'd looked longingly about as Chambers conducted me to Dunham's office, but we