Read Online Dead by Any Other Name by Sebastian Stuart - Free Book Online

“The demons are dangerous.”
    I took a deep breath. Spending a night on a deserted island in the middle of the Hudson waiting for potentially armed thieves to arrive sounded … well, I guess when I thought about it, it sounded kind of exciting.
    â€œYeah, sure, I’ll do it.”
    Mad John leapt up, wrapped himself around me and cried, “I love Jan-Jan!”
    This drove Sputnik into a paroxysm of jealousy and he leapt up and threw himself against me, causing all of us to tumble into a heap on a nearby sofa.
    â€œWill you please grow up?” George huffed.
    â€œNo,” Mad John said.
    â€œStill wearing the jodhpurs?” I asked.
    â€œI’ve just come from my riding lesson, Antonio says I’m making incredible progress.”
    â€œOn a playground horse?”
    â€œI hate to disappoint you, Janet, but I’ve graduated from the playground horse.”
    â€œThat’s great, so you’re on a real horse now?”
    â€œSort of, yes.”
    â€œWhat do you mean sort of ?”
    â€œThe horse I am now training on resembles a real horse in many important ways, it’s an enormous step up in difficulty from the playground horse. It bucks .”
    â€œIt bucks?”
    â€œYes, darling, it bucks.”
    â€œWait … it’s not the mechanical horse over at Price Chopper, is it?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    I bit my tongue—the image of George getting a riding lesson on a kiddie horse in front of the supermarket was just too much.
    â€œYou know, Janet, the look on your face right now says it all. Well, it’s very easy to mock innocence and passion, but Antonio and I are in love and don’t care what the world thinks. In fact, I may move to the pampas with him, then you’ll be sorry.”
    â€œWhen do we get to meet him?”
    â€œAntonio comes from a very macho culture.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œWhich is why he’s not gay.”
    â€œHe’s not gay?”
    â€œHe’s not gay gay.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œBut we’re not hung up on labels.”
    â€œHow old is he?”
    â€œOkay, I’m not going down this road.”
    â€œHe young! He young! He young!” Mad John cried, jumping up and down again.
    George puffed up and said, “He’s an old soul.”
    â€œHe young!”
    â€œThis discussion is over. We’re going over to the island next Thursday, we’ll rendezvous at Mad John’s at sunset. I am now leaving, with my dignity intact.” He marched to the door, opened it, then stopped short and turned, “Oh, Janet, do you have any spare quarters, I want to go practice my canter.”

seventeen
    I picked up a chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot to ensure my welcome and hopefully loosen Collier Denton’s lips. I headed down to Stone Ridge through the Rondout Valley, always a fun drive because the landscape is so flat and agricultural with miles of vegetable and corn fields, rambling farmhouses, popular farmstands; this Rondout Creek bottomland is some of the richest soil in the northeast and driving through you can smell the dense crumbly loam and imagine the first Dutch settlers claiming its bounty, building their stone houses, filled with promise and hope and industry. What would they make of the Olive Gardens and crack dens?
    I drove past Bumpland and turned at the faded wooden sign reading Fleur de Moi . Signs of neglect were everywhere—the pond looked silty, the lawns patchy, the gardens overgrown, the house chipped and a bit sad. The whole place was romantic and evocative in an old-alcoholic-with-dwindling-funds-lives-within kind of way.
    As I parked, I saw a curtain pulled back, a face in the shadows. I got out and as I approached the house, the front door flew open to reveal Collier Denton.
    â€œHello, my dear,” he oozed, his eyes going right to the bottle. Wearing the same silk dressing gown I’d seen him in the other day, he was tall, thin, stood