Read Online Catherine Nelson - Zoe Grey 02 - The Trouble with Theft by Catherine Nelson - Free Book Online Page A

design stuff I don’t understand. Their sister, Natalie, still
lives in California, in the town where their mother had moved them after the
divorce. Ellmann had told me she’s an artist. She works at a local community
college teaching painting, sculpture, and drawing. She does her own art on the
side and has done several art shows.
    “Well, okay,” I said.
“We should be happy for him, right?”
    “She’s probably
younger than my sister,” he said. “He’s not a young man anymore. I can’t help
but wonder what she’s after.”
    No one in Ellmann’s
family is hurting for money, least of all his father.
    “Okay, so when she
gets here, we’ll get her full name and her prints and do a background check. If
she seems shady, I’m not above a little intimidation.”
    He glanced down at me
then laughed.
    “I want you to meet
them,” he said after a minute.
    We walked to the door
of the ice cream shop, and he pulled it open.
    Ellmann’s intimately
familiar with my family after a couple encounters shortly after we met. It
hadn’t gone well, but at least my dirty little secret was out on the table. I’d
never met any of his family. I suppose I hadn’t thought it would never happen,
but I had thought it would be a while longer.
    “When are they
coming?” I asked as we got in line.
    “Tomorrow.”
    I knew my eyes were
bigger than usual when I looked up at him.
    “Tomorrow? What kind
of notice is that?”
    “He only called me
today. That’s just how he is. My sister will fly in about an hour later. I was
thinking we could all have dinner.”
    “Have you told them
about me?”
    “Yes, a little.
Please, don’t worry. They’ll love you.”
    Naturally. What’s not
to love?
    “And on the off chance
they don’t?”
    “Doesn’t matter.
There’s a reason I moved to a state where none of my family lives.”
    __________
     
    We ate our ice cream at a table on
the sidewalk outside the shop. We chatted about important things and about
nothing. One of my favorite things about Ellmann is how easy it is to be with
him. We don’t always have to be doing something or talking; we could do nothing
and not say a word. We could also do anything or talk about anything. And I
rarely get bored with him. He makes me think; he challenges me, pushes me.
Ellmann’s very intelligent, and I found we are more equally matched than most
people I know.
    But brains run in
Ellmann’s family. Ellmann has degrees in science and psychology. His brother is
an engineer. His sister was a chemistry major before she switched to art. Their
father was a scientist for the Army Corps of Engineers until he retired. And their
mother is some sort of biological research scientist for the Center for Disease
Control.
    My family didn’t
necessarily get shorted in the brain department, but mental illness runs
rampant on my mother’s side, and there is a long history of abuse on my
father’s. All of this significantly affected the ability of my relatives to
pursue college degrees and honest, meaningful careers. My mother somehow
managed to get an MBA and become a partner in her investment firm, but she was
the exception to the rule, and I can’t even begin to guess how she managed to
do it. It probably had something to do with the fact that the schizophrenia
that runs in the family had skipped over her. She got bipolar disorder instead.
By some miracle, both my brother and I seemed to be unaffected, but this is a
constant fear in the back of my mind.
    I sat opposite Ellmann
facing north. I watched the heavy foot traffic in and out of Starbucks over his
shoulder. This Starbucks store is located in the old, historic Northern Hotel.
Yesterday’s Ice Cream Shoppe and a couple other places share the space. The
hotel is located on the north side of Old Town and just west of Old Town
Square. There are always lots of people in this area, and today the place was
hopping, with an almost constant string of people in and out. I could see
customers milling around