Read Online A Reason to Kill by Jane A. Adams - Free Book Online Page A

strong, sweet tea. She gave them both a can of Coke and a chocolate bar and watched anxiously from the kitchen door while the boys headed upstairs to Paul’s room.
    Paul had eaten almost nothing, just played with his meal and finally, reluctantly, ploughed his way through just enough to satisfy his mum before asking if they could leave the table.
    â€˜Your dad won’t be home till late,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be getting his dinner for when he comes in. You want me to do you something? You might feel more like it later.’
    Paul shook his head and grunted something unintelligible. His mother sighed. ‘OK, get along with the pair of you, but just you watch that arm.’
    George sat down on the edge of his friend’s bed and watched as he set up the computer game. Paul had got the latest
Final Fantasy
a couple of weeks before and, ordinarily, George would be almost salivating with anticipation. Today though, he saw Paul’s fumbling about with the connections and taking extra time fiddling for exactly what it was: delaying tactics so he didn’t have to talk. George had been shocked by the sight of his friend. Two black eyes, purpling now at the edges, dark bruises on the back of his arm that even a parent couldn’t mistake for anything other than deep finger marks and an elbow so swollen and painful that even just plugging in the connections caused him to wince.
    â€˜She knows you never fell down the stairs,’ George said finally. ‘Yer mum’s not daft.’
    Paul shrugged. ‘She’s hoping you’ll get it out of me,’ he said flatly.
    â€˜So, what do you want me to tell her when she asks?’
    Paul shrugged. ‘How should I know?’
    â€˜So, what
don’t
you want me to tell her? That Mark Dowling beat you up?’
    Paul sighed and handed the controller to George. ‘Play if you want. It hurts my hand.’
    George shrugged. ‘Better make some noise anyway,’ he said. He moved back on the bed and selected his character, sensing that he’d be more likely to get the truth out of his friend if he let him take his time and at least appeared not to be listening. That was the thing with Paul. He kept his thoughts and his feelings locked up some place even George was rarely allowed access to. It was something George didn’t really understand about him. Paul’s family was happy, close, nice, and yet he seemed to think he had a duty to keep himself a bit apart.
    George told himself he’d love to have parents like Paul’s but in his more honest moments he wasn’t sure that was true. He didn’t really know what that would be like and he wasn’t sure that his imagination was capable of grasping it.
    â€˜Dwayne was on the bus,’ he said. His thumbs shifted automatically across the control pad. ‘He reckoned he knew about the old lady. That Mark Dowling knew. He said you told him.’
    Out of the corner of his eye he saw Paul shrug. He came over and sat down next to George, his back against the wall, eyes fixed on the screen.
    â€˜The police are there, at the old lady’s house. I saw them. I had to walk past when I got off the bus.’
    â€˜He killed her,’ Paul said softly. ‘He bashed her head in.’
    George dropped the controller. ‘He
what
?’ He stared at Paul. ‘How? When? How do you know? Do the police know? I mean …’
    Paul stared straight at the screen, his body rigid, face white beneath the blackened bruising. ‘I know ‘cause I was there,’ he said. ‘He beat her up and her face was all bashed in and there was blood all over and she was just lying there on the floor and I didn’t do nothing to stop him.’
    George stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed, the food he had so recently eaten suddenly greasy and leaden in his belly.
    â€˜I told him about the gun,’ Paul whispered. Gingerly, he fingered his damaged elbow. ‘He