Video Kill by Joanne Fluke Read Free Book Online

the evening talking to the wife of a man who’d later turned out to do nothing for Tony’s career. Allison had forgotten her rising bread dough in the rush, and when they’d returned home, shortly before midnight, she’d tumbled into bed without even changing into her nightgown.
    Tony’s voice had roused her the next morning. Was she growing something in the oven? There was a white, pulsating mass in there that looked like it was trying to ooze out the door.
    Allison had let out a genuine cry of alarm and rushed to open the oven door. Her bread dough! She’d forgotten all about it! As the cold morning air had hit the warm yeasty mass, it had given a dying sigh and deflated, leaving huge, stringy patches of gloop all over the inside of the oven. When Allison had tried to clean up the mess with a wet sponge, it had spread like paste, taking total possession of the oven. Tony had sat at the kitchen table and laughed, sipping his coffee and making references to The Sorcerer’s Apprentice .
    An entire year had passed before Allison had worked up the nerve to try it again. Her second attempt had showed no tendency to rise at all, so she’d popped it into the oven anyway, hoping for the best. Tony had come home just in time to see her take her loaves out of the oven, two squat, brown bricks that fell from the pan with a solid thunk. He’d laughed at the dismayed expression on her face and cracked one of his usual jokes. Why didn’t she bake a couple more batches so they could build a fireplace? Allison had smiled good-naturedly, but she had given up on the fine art of bread making.
    Allison’s face grew solemn as she thought of her husband. Things had changed since they’d moved into their expensive new house, and just last week, when she’d tried to discuss the distance that was growing between them, Tony had shrugged it off. He’d insisted that Allison was looking for a problem where none existed. Everything was fine. She was probably depressed because of her mother. He’d feel the same way, in her position.
    Allison knew Tony was partially right. Visits with her mother were emotionally draining, and it took all of Allison’s strength to smile and keep up a stream of amusing chatter while she sat in a chair by the bed and watched her mother slowly die. Some afternoons, when Allison came home from the convalescent center, it took hours to shake her feelings of depression and helplessness. She seldom went out anymore, preferring to stay by the phone in case her mother suddenly took a turn for the worse. She watched endless hours of television, switching from channel to channel, hoping for something intriguing enough to take her mind off the woman who lay dying in Bel Air thirty-five minutes away.
    When Helen Greene had first gone to the doctor, sixteen months ago, Allison had refused to accept the diagnosis. She’d urged her mother to go for a second opinion, a third opinion, and then a fourth. After the fifth specialist, her mother had stopped all that nonsense. Helen Greene knew she had terminal cancer and she didn’t need more doctors to confirm it. Allison would just have to accept the inevitable.
    Helen had stayed in her own home for as long as she could, and then sold the house to pay her medical expenses at the convalescent center. The sale had gone through a year ago, and Allison suspected that her mother’s money had run out. When she had questioned Tony about it, he’d told her to let him worry about supporting the family.
    In many ways Tony was an old-fashioned man. He had handled their finances from the start, and Allison admitted that it was probably wise. She’d never been good at budgeting. She knew their elaborate home was a financial drain. The mortgage payment was high, but Tony had told her to leave that to him. He’d said that in show biz you had to spend money to make money.
    They’d moved into their new house right after