Read Online Dead Shot by Annie Solomon - Free Book Online Page B

poplars, black walnuts, and Osage oranges lined the road. They were big trees, with heavy foliage that arched over the path in summer to create a light-dappled bower. Now, skeletal branches furred with buds reached over the drive. To Gillian they always looked like witch’s fingers, poised to snatch the innocent.
    Ahead, the house loomed stately and patrician, its Greek revival portico gleaming ghostly white in the moonlight. It wasn’t hard to imagine the clatter of hooves and the jingle of harnesses, the open carriages that disgorged giggling women in bell-hooped skirts.
    But not tonight. Tonight, the spirit of the Old South was dead, and the only vehicle pulling up to the door was working class. And there was no Scarlett inside.
    Ray braked. Sat for a minute, eyeing the landscape.
    “Looking for anything in particular?”
    “Whatever’s out there.”
    She followed his gaze out the window into the inky air. Did he also know about the monster? Did he expect to find him here? “Anything?”
    He turned back to her. “No.”
    “Too bad.” She lifted the handle to open the door, but he reached across and stopped her.
    “I’ll take you in,” he said.
    “It’s two steps away. I’ll be fine.”
    He opened his door. “That’s what Gerhard Bruckner thought, too. His driver dropped him two yards from his house, and he was assassinated at his front door. Don’t get out until I get there.”
    She plopped back, knowing he didn’t get it and suddenly too drained to tell him. Maybe it was the scene with Sergeant Burke. Maybe it was the proximity of her own screwed-up family. Or maybe, just maybe, some deep inner quirk responded to being protected.
    Out of perverse curiosity, she tested the feeling. She hadn’t objected when he’d knocked her flat at the museum. Or on the walk up to his own house. Now, she sat still while he came around the truck’s front end and opened her door. Docile, she let him escort her to the house. Unlocked the door without protest while he guarded her. Hand on the knob, he spoke.
    “Is there an alarm system?”
    She laughed. “Of course. In the closet to the right.”
    “What’s the code?”
    She turned the knob herself and entered. “I have no idea. They usually forget to turn it on.”
    His brows rose in surprise. “Forget?”
    “Accidentally on purpose you might say. In this house, no one likes to be reminded how vulnerable we are.”
    She ignored his frown because now that she was inside, the smell of roses slapped her back. As it did every time she’d been away and returned, the sharp tang hacked away at the false front of the present to reveal the bones of the past. The funeral. Standing at the bottom of the stairs while her grandmother tugged a coat on her. Scratching at the sleeves because they were too tight.
    “It’s cold.” Genevra had fastened the top button until it choked. She had to lean close to do it, so the rose smell had overwhelmed. “We’ll be outside, and you’ll be glad to have it.”
    Gillian remembered that coat clearly. Navy blue with a velvet collar.
    “Where’s your room?”
    The voice startled her out of the past, and she turned to the sound, looked up, almost surprised to find a tall, big-boned man standing beside her.
    Ray.
    “You want to see my bedroom?” She threw him a provocative smile, eager to bury those memories.
    He deadpanned his response. “Yeah, short stack, I believe I do.”
    She took him up the winding staircase and down the carpeted hallway to her room. She remembered the first time she’d made that trip without her mother’s comforting hand to guide her. The walls were mountainous, the furniture monstrous, the carpet swallowed the sound of her feet and made her feel like a ghost.
    She’d felt that way for a long time. Unreal. A phantom. And then she found a way to make herself as real as anyone. Instinctively, she hugged herself, rubbing hands up and down her covered arms. That’s when she noticed Ray at her shoulder,