Read Online High-Caliber Concealer by Bethany Maines - Free Book Online Page A

cream.
    “Connelly residence,” said her grandmother
on the third ring.
    “Hi, Grandma. It’s Nikki.”
    “Ah, Nikki, my favorite grandchild.”
    “I’m your only grandchild, so that better be
true,” said Nikki laughing.
    “Don’t check the fine print, honey, just
accept the compliment,” said her grandmother, not quite
laughing.
    Nikki pictured her grandmother, Peg
Connelly, standing in the kitchen of her farmhouse, short, gray
hair fluffing out around her ears, probably barefoot and wearing
jeans with some heinously pastel plaid shirt from Wal-Mart. It made
her nostalgic and it made her feel the emptiness of the apartment
even more. She yanked out the ice cream and shut the freezer door
with a round house kick.
    “I’m glad you called, honey,” said Peg.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I feel like I’ve hardly
spoken to you in the last year.”
    Nikki ignored the shooting stab of guilt.
“It’s been a really busy year. But it turns out I’ve got some time
off and I was thinking about coming up for a visit.”
    “A visit? Well, that would be great. When do
you think you’ll be here? I’ll have to clean up your room.”
    Nikki ignored that comment, since her
grandmother’s idea of horrible filth barely registered on Nikki’s
scale of unclean. “I was thinking I would drive up, so…” Nikki
stared at the calendar, trying to math out miles to days. “Maybe,
Wednesday?”
    “Wednesday is fine, but I don’t think you
should drive up,” said Peg. “Not by yourself. I don’t think that
would be safe.”
    “Mmm,” said Nikki. “You make a point.” She
flipped the lid off the ice cream.
    “You should check the flights and let me
know when you’ll arrive. I’ll come pick you up in Spokane.”
    “I’ll have to think about that,” said Nikki,
opening the cupboard to look for a bowl and then realizing that
they were all in the dishwasher.
    “OK,” said Peg. “You can email me when
you’ve got some flight numbers and let me know when you
arrive.”
    “I think we can still say that I’ll be
arriving on Wednesday,” said Nikki.
    “Great. I can get your room clean by then.
Or, you know, you can call me when you land at Seatac because I’ll
leave for Spokane when you leave Seattle. There aren’t any direct
flights from LAX to Spokane are there?”
    “I don’t know if there are or not,” replied
Nikki. She pulled out a large spoon and levered out a chunk of ice
cream.
    “You’ll have to look into that.”
    There was a pause as Nikki said nothing and
tried to juggle the phone while bracing the ice cream against the
toaster for better leverage.
    “Well, honey, I’m so excited that you’re
coming to visit!” said Peg. “It’s really good because I’ve been
wanting to talk to you about something kind of important.”
    Nikki paused with the spoon half-way to her
mouth. Her mother had been hinting that Peg might be looking into
selling the farm, and the idea of selling the family home made
Nikki want to cry. She did not think she could face talking about
it right now. Her mind flipped through a rolodex of responses. Then
the doorbell rang.
    “Is that your doorbell?”
    “Yes,” said Nikki.
    “Well, you’d better go. I’ll see you on
Wednesday. Bye, honey!”
    “Bye, Grandma.” Nikki hung up the phone, set
down the spoon, and reached for her gun. She flipped open the app
on her phone that was tied to the web cam that watched her door.
Jane waved up at it.
    “Hey, Jane,” said Nikki opening the
door.
    “Hey,” said Jane, breezing into the
apartment with take-out bags. “I bought Chinese and then I thought
maybe you would want some too.” She set the bags down on the
kitchen counter next to the ice cream. “But we can always start
with dessert.”
    “I’ll take the Chinese first,” said Nikki.
“It’ll give the ice cream time to soften. Where are the girls?”
    “Ellen’s at her kickboxing class and Jenny
went to the range to blow off steam. They said