Tell by Norah McClintock Read Free Book Online Page A

explanation.
    Phil came into the kitchen. He glanced at the cards in my hand. I stared at him.
    â€œYou cheated,” I said.
    He didn’t say anything.
    â€œAll this time you’ve been playing hands with me, you’ve been cheating.”
    He tried to laugh it off. “It’s not like I was stealing from you, Davy,” he said. “It’s not like we were playing for money.”
    â€œYou cheated,” I said again. I couldn’t believe it. Well, maybe that wasn’t exactly true. Maybe it wasn’t a huge surprise to me that Phil would do something like that. But I felt like an idiot for being cheated by him all this time and never knowing it. “I’m going to tell Mom,” I said. I probably sounded like a baby saying that, but I wanted her to know what kind of jerk she had married.
    â€œShe won’t believe you,” Phil said. “Not after I talk to her. That’s the trouble with being a pain in the ass, Davy. She knows you don’t like me. She knows you never listen to me. Now, as far as she’s concerned, you’re just going to kick it up anotch and start telling lies about me. Keep it up and nobody’s going to be sorry when you’re finally old enough to move out.”
    I looked at Detective Antonelli.
    â€œIs that why you did it, David?” he said. “Because you found out that your stepfather was cheating you at cards?”
    â€œI didn’t do it,” I told him. “I didn’t do anything.” And, boy, that was the truth.

Chapter Ten
    Detective Antonelli stared at me. He said, “Where did you get the gun?”
    â€œWhat gun?”
    â€œCome on, David,” he said. “Your stepfather was shot dead. Your mother found the missing picture of your brother in the clothes dryer. Your clothes were the only ones in the dryer. We know for a fact that you were in the immediate area right before your stepfather was shot.And you lied to us about it. Where did you get the gun? What did you do with it afterward?”
    â€œI never had a gun. I didn’t do it,” I told him again.
    Detective Antonelli looked impatient.
    â€œI just told you about Phil cheating so you’d get an idea what kind of person he was,” I said. “The important part has to do with that hand he played with Jack. The one where he kept raising and he won, and where Jack folded.”
    â€œWhat about it, David?” Detective Antonelli said. He sounded worse than impatient. He sounded annoyed.
    â€œI saw what Jack was talking about,” I said. “I figured out what Phil’s tell was. After he looked at his cards, just before he bet, when Jack was looking at him,
studying
him”—I wanted him to get that part—“Phil’s face changed. One minute he was right in there, watching everything. Then, just like that, he licked his lips and his eyes went kind of blank, like he was trying hard not to show what he was reallyfeeling, like he didn’t want everyone to know he had a great hand for a change.”
    â€œDavid, we need to get back on topic here.”
    â€œDo you remember what my mother told you about my brother Jamie?” I said.
    â€œDavid—”
    â€œDo you?”
    â€œShe said he drowned.”
    â€œWe were at this cottage that Phil had borrowed from a friend of his,” I said. “We were supposed to spend two weeks there. My mom was nervous about it. She never learned to swim. She didn’t like the water. Jamie didn’t know how to swim either. Mom tried to make him go to swimming lessons, but he horsed around so much all the time that they kicked him out. She made him wear a life jacket just to go on the beach, and she made sure that either she or Phil was watching him all the time. Phil, he could swim. He always boasted how he was on the swim team in high school. He has a bunch of medals and ribbons in a display case on the wall ofhis study.” They were