Terminal (A Lomax & Biggs Mystery Book 5) by Marshall Karp Read Free Book Online

about your grandmother dying?”
    “Sad. Then happy because my mom is finally coming home. Then sad again because I’m going to miss you and Diana.”
    “We’ll miss you too,” I said. “But we’re still going to see you.”
    “It won’t be the same, Mike.”
    Damn right it wouldn’t
. The kid was wise beyond her years.
    “We should commemorate the occasion,” I said. “Give you a big sendoff and your mom a big welcome home.”
    Her eyes lit up, and she clasped her hands together. “You mean a party?”
    “Sure. Why not?”
    “Could we do it at Big Jim’s house?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Then we’d have to invite Big Jim.”
    That got a big giggle.
    “We may as well invite him,” I said. “You know my father. He’s going to show up anyway.”
    “And Frankie. We definitely need Frankie. And Izzy.”
    “You want them with or without their Big Ugly Food Truck?”
    “Duh-uh,” she said. “It’s a party. We’ve got to eat.”
    “Gotcha. We’ll invite Frankie and Izzy and tell them that they’re in charge of feeding us. Make a list of everything you want, and we’ll get it done.”
    “Awesome. I’ll do it as soon as I finish my story.”
    “It shouldn’t take you long,” I said. “I mean what does a kid your age know about death?”
    She looked up and gave me a gap-toothed smile. “I know a lot more about death than I do about unicorns.”
    “Me too, kiddo,” I said, kissing the top of her head. “Me too.”

CHAPTER 11
    DIANA, SOPHIE, AND I have our morning routine down to a science. The coffee starts brewing at 5:45, alarm clocks go off at 6:30, we sit down for breakfast at 7:00, and we’re out the door at exactly 7:20. Diana drives to Valley General Hospital where she’s a pediatric oncology nurse. I head to the Hollywood station, dropping Sophie off at Bradfield—a private school on West Olympic.
    “I’m going to miss being your chauffeur every morning,” I said, opening the back door for Sophie and making sure she was buckled up. “After five months, we’re like a finely tuned, well-oiled machine.”
    “We’re more like the Rockettes,” Sophie said, rewriting me as usual.
    “What does a kid from LA know about a bunch of dancers in New York?”
    “Tons,” she giggled. “I Googled them.”
    “You know, if I were your father instead of just your congenial host and proprietor of the Hotel Lomax, I wouldn’t let you be Googling your way around the Internet,” I said. “Not everything on the information highway is PG, kiddo.”
    “I know, but my mother thinks there’s a lot I can learn from the kid-friendly websites. Plus, she trusts me to be careful on highways—the 405, the 101, the Internet.” She giggled again.Sophie is her own best audience, but I was quickly becoming a close second.
    “What ever possessed you to Google the Rockettes anyway?” I asked.
    “It was an accident. You know how Google always tries to figure out what you’re looking for before you even finish putting in the whole word. I was typing
rocketry
but Google guessed the
Rockettes
, so I checked them out.”
    “And?”
    “Those ladies are like a finely tuned, well-oiled machine.”
    Big giggles. From both of us.
    “What are you and Terry doing today?” she asked as I took the ramp onto the 10.
    “Oh, the usual. Round up some bad guys, lock them up, throw away the key.”
    “Oh, give me a break, man,” she said. “What are you
really
doing?”
    As much as I didn’t want my conversation with an eight-year-old to come back around to death again, I’ve always been straight with her, so I told her the truth. “We’re starting out at the morgue.”
    “Cool. One of these days, can I go to the morgue with you?”
    I took a look at her in the rearview mirror to see if she was still joking around. She wasn’t.
    “You know,” she said hopefully. “Like Take Your Daughter To Work Day.”
    “Oh, in that case,” I said, “absolutely.”
    That threw her. “Really? When can we