Veiled Threats by DEBORAH DONNELLY Read Free Book Online

tell Nickie?”
    “Only if it's necessary,” said Grace. “And we will absolutely not tell Douglas, is that understood?”
    “Understood,” said Theo grimly. “If it's Keith Guthridge, I'll kill him. I'll—”
    “Theo.” Grace put a hand on his arm and he stiffened, like a snarling dog recognizing its master. “Theo, we don't even know if it's true. In fact I doubt very much that it is. I'll discuss it with Lieutenant Borden and perhaps he can help us with the car. Then we'll decide what to do next. Carnegie, thank you so much for telling me. I'm sure it's nothing, but I appreciate it all the same. You're a real friend of the family.”
    “All ready!” Nickie came breathlessly out the door, all smiles, with the dress box in her arms. She beamed at Theo, and his stolid expression warmed up at the sight of her. Nickie, I knew, sometimes referred to Theo fondly as her big brother. Surely Eddie was right. Who would hurt a girl like this? It didn't make sense.

“I TAKE IT THE WEDDING IS STILL ON ?” I ASKED N ICKIE AS WE recrossed Lake Washington toward Seattle. Ahead of us in the west a barricade of leaden clouds obscured the Olympic Mountains that rise up beyond Puget Sound. Behind us a similar barricade loomed across the eastern horizon, blotting out the Cascades. Rain in the Olympics, rain in the Cascades, and maybe snow as well at the higher elevations, even in June. But here, in between, we drove under a portal of serene, oblivious blue.
    She blushed. “It's still on. Ray called this morning. He was all worried about the accident, and we made up. I guess I was overreacting. I've been so worried about Daddy.”
    “About these letters, and his heart condition?”
    “Did Grace tell you? Yeah, his heart, and now his testimony to the grand jury.” She wound a strand of hair around her fingers and tugged at it. “He's really worried, I can tell. Uncle Keith must be feeling betrayed, but Daddy can't lie, can he?”
    “No, of course not. Are you still on good terms with your uncle? I mean, with—”
    “With Keith,” she said firmly, like a child with a lesson. “Grace asked me to stop calling him Uncle, but I forget. It's pretty weird. Sometimes he calls me, wants to know if I'm OK.”
    “Have you talked to him lately?”
    “What about?”
    “Oh, your wedding plans, other things. About going to Diane's wedding?”
    She shrugged. “He doesn't know Diane.”
    Although, I thought, if he's having her watched she wouldn't need to tell him. He'd know where she left her car. I changed the subject.
    “So who's Holt Walker?” I asked.
    “One of Daddy's lawyers,” said Nickie, unaware that some daddies don't have any lawyers at all. “I thought you'd met him already. They're old friends, and Holt comes to the house a lot, especially since his wife died a few years ago.”
    I nodded, picturing a gray-haired family retainer with bifocals and a dry cough. “And what's all this about a reporter?”
    She frowned, as fiercely as her gentle features would allow. “Aaron Gold. He's a reporter for the
Sentinel
. He writes about King County Savings in nearly every issue, and he's not fair at all.”
    The
Seattle Sentinel
was a weekly paper, livelier and more liberal than the stuffy dailies. It usually focused on politics and the arts scene rather than business, but tying the savings-and-loan scandal to a local magnate was pretty juicy stuff.
    “Don't worry about it,” I told her as I threaded through downtown and pulled into a parking lot near the Pike Place Market. “Nobody believes everything they read in the papers anymore, and even if they do they forget it the next day. I'm starving. Let's find some lunch.”
    The Market was bustling. Tourists and local lunchers crowded along the open-air concourse of produce stalls and craft displays, and inside the shops and restaurants thatpurveyed everything from kites to sushi to collectible comic books. Strawberries in ruby rows, painted T-shirts fluttering on racks,