Read Online Dead Certain by Mariah Stewart - Free Book Online Page B

doorbell for the third time, though he suspected that she’d have answered the door if she were there. She didn’t seem to be the type who would hide. Then again, she didn’t seem to be the type to put a gun to the head of an old friend and pull the trigger, either. It remained to be seen whether she’d done just that.
    Curious, though, that her car was in the drive.
    Maybe he’d just take this opportunity to look around the property. One never knew what one might find.
    The front lawn was neat and newly trimmed, the flower bed mulched. Baskets of purple and white flowers—tired blossoms at summer’s end, in need of a watering—hung from the porch railing. Out back, black-eyed Susans grew in an unwieldy clump near the base of an apple tree that was long past due for a pruning, and daylilies with withered blooms grew in a patch along one side of the one-car garage. The lawn mower stood abandoned near the back porch, and the yard looked half-mowed, as if the person doing the job had been called away in the middle of it. He wondered what it was that had called Amanda from her yard work on this Sunday morning.
    Peering through the glass panes in the back door gave him a view of the unlit back hall. As tall as he was, he could lean up to a high, small window to the right of the door and see into half the kitchen. It was a small square-shaped room, with a short row of cabinets and counters along the inside wall. The sink, stove, and refrigerator were just along the outside wall, the sink under the single window from which a wooden box of herbs had been hung. He reached up and grabbed a leaf, and crushing it between his fingers, held it to his nose. Spearmint.
    It was an evocative scent. Mint had grown in the scrappy little garden his grandmother had tried to grow in the minuscule yard behind the Philadelphia row house they’d lived in when he was a kid. Nowadays, in some parts of the city, they called them town houses. He suspected that in his old neighborhood, they were still called rows. He couldn’t imagine that gentrification had arrived in that part of town. If it had, it could only have come kicking and screaming bloody murder.
    For years, he’d avoided thoughts of that house, that neighborhood, that time in his life. Lately, he’d thought of little else. That’s what happened when the past unexpectedly collided with the present. He had a feeling that the rest of his day would provide ample proof of that.
    He glanced at his watch. Almost noon. His stomach clenched. Only another hour . . .
    He forced his attention back to Amanda Crosby and the results of the forensic testing that he’d found in an envelope on his desk when he stopped by the station last night. He still couldn’t figure out whether he was surprised by the findings. He just didn’t have a clear read on her yet.
    The backyard was narrow but deep, with a koi pond complete with a lightly bubbling fountain and a stone bench near the rear boundary. At least, he assumed the post and rail fence marked the rear of the Crosby property. He wondered if Amanda spent much time back here. It was peaceful, serene, the sort of place one might seek out when the world got to be too much. He wondered idly what she might have on her mind those times when she sought some little bit of sanctuary.
    For a moment, he was sorely tempted to sit on the bench and listen to the fountain and watch the koi for a while. But he had somewhere to go, someone to see. He walked straight down the drive and to his car. Later, maybe, after he’d done what he needed to do, he’d stop back to see Ms. Crosby. He couldn’t help but wonder just what frame of mind he’d be in by then.
             
    “. . . and I just can’t help it, Manda. I know it’s silly, but I just can’t stay in that house right now.” Clark rubbed his forehead with his fingers.
    “I don’t think it’s silly at all.” Amanda leaned over and patted his arm. “You’ve lost the most important person in