Read Online Always Look Twice by Geralyn Dawson - Free Book Online

him from time to time, but never his wife. He set his bottle down on the patio table, then moved back inside and over to his desk. He picked up the receiver as she continued. ‘‘I’m Jeremy’s wife. You came to our wedding. I need to speak with you—’’
    ‘‘Hello, Frances. It’s Mark. It’s nice to hear from you. What can I do for you?’’
    At that, she burst into tears. Ah, hell . Mark propped a hip on the corner of his desk and tried to catch the words she managed through her sobs. He picked up a few that he wished he’d misunderstood.
    ‘‘Jeremy . . . mumble, mumble . . . dead . . . explosion. Mumble mumble mumble . . . accident. They’re wrong.’’ She let out a long, hard sob. ‘‘Wrong!’’
    Mark closed his eyes and took a few seconds to mourn. Jeremy Russo had been a good man and a fine soldier, and he knew his way around explosives like nobody else. For Russo to have made a fatal mistake, he would have needed to be seriously distracted.
    Or seriously unhappy. Mark stared out the window at the spectacular view without really seeing it. He could picture Russo committing suicide by bomb easier than he could see him killing himself by mistake. But the Russo Mark knew wouldn’t take the coward’s way out and do himself in. No, something was very, very wrong here.
    He walked around to his black leather desk chair and took a seat. ‘‘Frances, what exactly happened? Can you tell me?’’
    ‘‘It wasn’t an accident!’’
    ‘‘I tend to agree with you. Jeremy wouldn’t have made a mistake like that.’’
    She settled down a bit then and told him about Russo’s backyard workshop and the wood-carving hobby he’d taken up. Mark recalled Russo sitting beside a campfire on a mountain in Serbia, whittling a stick. Yeah, he could see him with a workshop. Frances Russo next described how she and her husband had sat down for supper and talked about the trip to Vegas they had planned for the following month.
    ‘‘He was excited about going, Mark. He’d won the Super Bowl pool at work and had stuck the money away for gambling. He wasn’t depressed or anything. He was happy. We were happy. We had decided to start a family.’’
    Mark blew out a heavy breath. ‘‘Where has Jeremy been working?’’
    ‘‘At Martindale Junior High. He earned his teaching certificate and he’s the shop teacher. He loves it. Loved it.’’
    She broke down again then, and while Mark waited her out, he wondered just what was going on. Why would a woodshop teacher have explosives in his work shed? When he judged she’d collected herself, he asked again, ‘‘What can I do to help you, Frances?’’
    ‘‘I want you to show the police. Prove it to them. Someone did this. Someone murdered my Jeremy and I want you to find him and make him pay. You’re a private investigator—Jeremy told me. I want to hire you. He had some life insurance, so I’ll be able to pay you—’’
    ‘‘Wait. Hold on, honey. Jeremy was my friend, part of my unit. I will look into it, but I won’t take your money. You hear?’’
    ‘‘But you will find out who did this?’’
    ‘‘Yes, Frances, I will. You have my word.’’ He grabbed a notepad and a pen from his desk. ‘‘I need a few details. First, have you scheduled services yet? If so, when and where?’’
    They spoke for another few minutes; then Mark disconnected the call. Immediately, he punched in another number. The phone rang twice and a man’s voice said, ‘‘NetJet.’’
    ‘‘Hi, Jim, it’s Mark Callahan. I’m gonna need the Citation at six a.m. tomorrow for a flight to Philly.’’
    ‘‘Sure thing, Mr. Callahan. She’ll be ready and waiting for you.’’
    He hung up, retrieved his beer, and briefly debated the idea of getting something stronger. Damn, Jeremy. What the hell happened? His thoughts drifted back to the three years when he had lived and breathed the unit.
    God, he’d loved it. Russo had been the one to tag them as the Fixers.