The Accident by Linwood Barclay Read Free Book Online

make a living, I could imagine money was tight.
    For about a year, she’d been running these so-called “purse parties” where women could buy imitation designer bags for a fraction of the price of the real ones. Sheila had turned our place over to Ann one night not long ago to run one. It was quite an event, like one of those Tupperware things—or at least what I imagine one of those Tupperware things are like.
    Twenty women invaded the house. Sally, from work, came, as well as Doug Pinder’s wife, Betsy. I was particularly surprised when Sheila’s mother, Fiona, showed up, with her husband Marcus in tow. Fiona could afford a genuine Louis Vuitton if she wanted one, and I couldn’t see her carrying around a bag that wasn’t the real deal. But Sheila, worried that Ann would get a poor turnout, had begged her mother to come. It was Marcus who finally persuaded Fiona to make the effort.
    “Be sociable,” he’d apparently told her. “You don’t have to actually buy one. Show up and support your daughter.”
    I hated to be cynical, but I couldn’t help wondering whether his motives had little to do with making his stepdaughter happy. An event like this, you had to figure there’d be a lot of women there, and Marcus liked to check out the ladies.
    Marcus and Fiona got to our place first, and when the women started arriving, he made a point of greeting them as they came through the door, introducing himself, offering to get each a glass of wine, making sure they all had a place to sit as they began to drool over leather and fake labels. His antics appeared to embarrass Fiona. “Stop making a fool of yourself,” she’d snapped, taking him aside at one point.
    Once Ann’s sales pitch got under way and Marcus and I had retreated to the back deck with a couple of beers, he said, somewhat defensively, “Don’t worry, I’m still madly in love with your mother-in-law. I just like women.” He smiled. “And I think they like me.”
    “Yeah,” I replied. “You’re a stud muffin.”
    Ann did pretty well that night. Made a couple of thousand dollars—even knockoff purses could run several hundred bucks—and for hosting the event, Sheila got to pick any bag she wanted.
    Even if the Slocums couldn’t afford repairs to their house, purses and policing were paying well enough for Ann to drive a three-year-old Beemer sedan, and Darren had a Dodge Ram pickup that gleamed red. Only the pickup was in the driveway as we approached the house.
    “Is Emily having any other friends sleep over?” I asked Kelly.
    “Nope. Just me.”
    We stopped at the curb.
    “You okay?” I asked her.
    “I’m okay.”
    “I’ll walk you to the door.”
    “Dad, you don’t have—”
    “Come on.”
    Kelly dragged her backpack, adopting a condemned-prisoner gait as we approached the house.
    “Don’t worry,” I said. There was a For Sale sign with a phone number stuck to the inside back window of Darren Slocum’s pickup. “It’ll be fun, once you’ve ditched your dad.”
    I was about to ring the bell when I heard a car pull in to the driveway. It was Ann in her Beemer. When she got out of the car, she grabbed a Walgreens bag.
    “Hey!” she called, more to Kelly than me. “I just got some snacks for your sleepover.” Then she laid her eyes on me. “Hi, Glen.” Only two words, but they were laced with sympathy.
    “Ann.”
    The front door opened. It was Emily, her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail just like Kelly’s. She must have spotted us through the window. She squealed at the sight of Kelly, who barely had time to mumble a farewell to me as she and her friend ran off.
    “So much for the tearful goodbye,” I said to Ann.
    She smiled, walking past me and taking me by the arm into the front hall.
    “Thanks for taking Kelly tonight,” I said. “She’s very excited.”
    “It’s no trouble.”
    Ann Slocum was in her mid-thirties, petite, with short black hair. Stylish jeans, a blue satiny T and matching bracelets.