Read Online Iris Avenue by Pamela Grandstaff - Free Book Online Page B

on, a battle for territory, and she needs to show her enemies just how powerful she is. She’ll kill as many people as she has to just to make that point.”
    “I just want to pay her off so she’ll go away.”
    “But she won’t go away,” Jamie said. “She’ll come back for more money, or worse, for favors. You’ll never be free. You can’t even run away. She’ll threaten every person in this town that you love. She’s a sociopath. She has no conscience, no scruples.”
    “Why don’t you arrest her?”
    “We want to be sure our case is a slam dunk, and that takes time. We are so close, and if you cooperate, it will happen even faster.”
    “What about my kids?”
    “We won’t let anyone harm your children,” Jamie said.
    “Those are just words,” she said. “They don’t mean anything.”
    Jamie put his hand over Ava’s, which rested on the kitchen island.
    “I promise to personally do everything I can to insure that you and your children are safe. Between the two of us, we can accomplish that.”
    Ava felt as if the decision to cooperate had already been made, and all she could do was go along with it.
    Scott knocked on Ava’s back door just then, and Ava let him in. He looked from Ava to Jamie, who stood and offered his hand while Ava introduced them. Scott shook the agent’s hand, and took a seat at the kitchen island, accepting the coffee that Ava offered.
    “I trust Scott,” Ava told the agent. “I won’t help you unless he’s involved.”
    “I know all about Chief Gordon,” Jamie told her, and then to Scott, he said, “I was planning to bring you on board tomorrow, but we may as well get you up to speed tonight.”
     
     
    Maggie closed the front door of Fitzpatrick’s Bakery and locked the door behind her. The streets of Rose Hill, which had felt so safe to her for most of her life, now seemed to be made up of places in which someone could hide and then jump out at her when she least expected it. She walked in the middle of the street instead of on the sidewalk, down two blocks and then left on Marigold Avenue toward the high wall that separated the Eldridge College campus from the town.
    Her parents’ house was the last one on the block, and all the lights were on inside. As she opened the front door she happened to look back and saw the town’s only police cruiser coming down the street. Her first thought was that Scott was following her to make sure she was safe. Her second was that it was more likely the police were keeping an eye on her parents’ house in case Brian decided to come home.
    Inside, her father, known as Fitz, her Grandpa Tim, and Uncles Curtis and Ian were watching the news on the television. Her father glanced at her briefly but didn’t seem to see her, and her Grandpa Tim winked.
    Uncle Curtis nodded to her and Uncle Ian grabbed her hand as she walked by. She leaned down to kiss him on the cheek.
    “Brian’s escape hasn’t been mentioned on the news yet,” he murmured.
    In the kitchen her mother, Bonnie, eyes swollen, skin blotchy and a tissue clutched in her hand, was sitting at the kitchen table with Aunt Delia.
    “Do you want tea?” Delia asked Maggie, who shook her head and sat down across from her mother.
    “Your last words to him may well be those spoken in anger,” Bonnie said, glaring at her daughter. “Not many mothers can boast of having been kicked out of a prison, but I can, thanks to you.”
    Delia clasped Maggie’s hand under the table and squeezed. Maggie bit back what she wanted to say and asked instead, “Have the police been here?”
    “The state police were here,” Bonnie said. “They said Brian is considered armed and dangerous.”
    “Has Scott been here?”
    “He’s at Ava’s,” Delia said. “He’s going to stay there until Brian is found.”
    Maggie felt a sharp stab of jealousy but was determined no one should see.
    “That’s good,” she said. “At least we’ll know they’re safe.”
    “As if he would harm