Read Online It Wasn't Always Like This by Joy Preble - Free Book Online Page B

that one refuses to surface. Dug himself a hole, and that’s that. Damn bastard reptile.”
    His eyes focused on Emma as though just realizing she was there. “Sorry, Emma. Have you seen your father?”
    Well, now what was she supposed to say? To either of them?
    The strange, frog-faced man approached Charlie’s father and held out his hand.
    “Kingsley Lloyd at your service,” he said, and made a little bow. “It is your lucky day, sir. I happen to be an expert herpetologist. And I just so happen to be looking for employment.”
    Emma’s mouth dropped a little. She had to remind herself that this was not ladylike, and snapped it shut. Part of her wished that Charlie would walk in, but another part of her wished he wouldn’t because this would be a funny story to tell him.
    “Herpetologist?” Charlie’s father looked the man up and down.
    “Worked all over the world,” said Kingsley Lloyd. “Zoos and private collections and an alligator farm in Africa. Southern Rhodesia, near the Limpopo River.”
    Emma waited for Mr. Ryan to say, “Hogwash.” Or something more colorful.
    “Epidemic over there two years ago,” Kingsley Lloyd continued. “Hit the gators’ joints. All they wanted to do was hide and stay still. Stopped moving, and then a bunch of them up and died. Healthy as horses, they were. Until they began ailing. A type of reptile rheumatism. I learned all about it. Quite the scientif ic mystery, you see.”
    Another charlatan, Emma thought.
    Even Frank Ryan was sure to make the same judgment.
    Instead, Charlie’s father offered a huge, toothy smile. “It’s a miracle,” he said. “You, sir, are a miracle! A herpetologist, here to save our business. C’mon, then. We’ll go f ind Art. Mr. O’Neill, that is. We run this place together. He’s going to be bowled over that you dropped in just now. Amazing.”
    Mr. Lloyd glanced at Emma. “Thought he was in his off ice,” he said, but he was still smiling.
    Charlie’s father shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “Art never works in there unless he has to.”
    Emma felt her face f lush. It didn’t matter. Neither man paid her any more notice. They were already out the door like old friends.

Chapter Seven
    Dallas, Texas
    Present
    Pete Mondragon answered his phone on the f irst ring.
    “Emma O,” he said, his voice deep and scratchy. “Knew you couldn’t resist my charms forever.”
    “Forever’s a long time,” Emma said.
    They were big on forever jokes. Pete was the only one who understood exactly how long Emma’s forever really was, how the moment-to-moment would stretch into inf inity while she stood still. At this particular moment, Emma was quite still—parked at the back end of the enormous IKEA parking lot, not far from the church.
    She wasn’t sure how much she planned on telling him. Her gaze wandered to a man in a striped shirt and baggy khakis. He loped by her, a wool beanie pulled low over his forehead. Five rolled-up rainbow-hued rugs poked from the top of the huge plastic bag slung over his shoulder. She’d probably been born at around the same time as the guy’s great-great-grandfather. What would that man think of his descendant’s rugs?
    Pete cleared his throat. “Happy New Year, O’Neill.”
    She watched the guy with the rugs. “I think there’s been another one,” she said.
    Pete appreciated when she got to the point.
    He snorted. At least that’s what it sounded like over the speaker. She pictured him on the other end—dark hair streaked with gray, forty-something. Thin ranging toward gaunt, which was hereditary, because the man loved to eat. Not that she didn’t like food herself; she certainly did. Just that Pete consumed things with a level of enthusiasm that verged on animalistic.
    When she’d f irst arrived in Albuquerque, she’d been investigating a string of girls who’d gone missing in and around New Mexico and Colorado. The kidnappings turned out to be the work of a religious fanatic, as she