Read Online Promise You Won't Tell? by John Locke - Free Book Online

line.”

It’s over by the time we get there.
    Neighbors are on the perimeter, speaking in hushed tones. Max and Jana are in the front yard, but only one of them is alive.
    Max.
    “Are you with the police?” he says, as I approach, carrying a flashlight.
    “No. Have you called them?”
    “Yes.”
    I glance down the street where Dillon’s already managed to open Jana’s trunk. We’re lucky she parked a good distance away. But I have no idea what to do about the bug Dillon planted in Max’s car.
    Speaking of Max, he’s crying.
    “What happened here?” I say.
    He points at the shattered glass near the front door and says, “My wife tried to shoot us through the window.”
    I look at Jana’s body. “If that’s true, she must be the worst shot in history.”
    “She fired twice. The second shot must have ricocheted on something.”
    “Wait. You’re claiming she shot herself ?”
    “She must have. Darcie and I don’t own guns. But neither does Jana.”
    “Where’s the gun she used?”
    “Next to her body, I suppose. This is as close as I’ve gotten to her.”
    “Because?”
    “I was afraid she might be faking, hoping I’d come closer so she could shoot me.”
    I shine my flashlight on her body. If there’s a gun, it’s under her.
    “You’re sure Jana doesn’t own a gun?”
    “We don’t believe in them. But she sure as hell had one. This is crazy. It’s crazy.”
    He looks at me. Says, “Who are you, exactly?”
    “Dani Ripper. Your wife hired me to find out if you were cheating on her.”
    Something bubbles up inside him. His face twists with rage.
    “This is your fault!” he shouts, and punches my face so fast and hard I fly six feet through the air before my back slams against the ground. He starts coming at me, but thankfully two of the neighbors come running to my rescue.
    “Are you all right?” first guy says.
    I murmur something.
    Second guy asks, “What did she say?”
    “She said she hates her job.”
    “What’s her job?”
    First guy leans closer and says, “What’s your job, hon?”
    “From now on? I’m a decoy.”
    “You mean like duck hunters use?”
    “Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean,” I say, rubbing my jaw.
    “What’d she say?” second man yells.
    “She says she’s a duck hunter!”

“Dani, hi. Everything okay?”
    I’m on the phone with my favorite assassin, Donovan Creed. Yes, I said “favorite.” I actually know more than one assassin.
    Impressed?
    I say, “Donovan, I’ve got a situation.”
    “I love situations,” he says. “How can I help?”
    “I need some advice.”
    “Oh.”
    He sounds disappointed. “Hypothetically, if a friend of yours put a tracking device in a car, and that car is currently part of a crime scene, and your friend didn’t want the cops to find it, what would you do?”
    “Hypothetically, where is the car, exactly? On the street, in a driveway, in a garage?”
    “Let’s say it’s in a garage that’s attached to a house.”
    “In a neighborhood? In Nashville?”
    “A ritzy neighborhood in Nashville, where the houses are several hundred feet apart. Hypothetically.”
    “Give me a hypothetical address, and within two hours I’ll have my guy blow the garage to hell.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Do you really have to ask me that?”
    God, I love this guy. It occurs to me to clarify, “No one gets hurt, right?”
    He pauses. “Is that how you want it?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll do it anyway.”

Despite the fact she’s a minor, and should be in school, Kelli Underhill’s sitting at the client conference table.
    Also present are her mother, Lydia, and their attorney, Allen Roemer.
    Roemer motions me to take a seat. I start to, and he says, “Not there.”
    I pull out a different chair, and he says, “Not there, either.”
    Two chairs remain. I pick one.
    “Not that one,” he says.
    There are one million two hundred thousand attorneys in this country, which means six hundred thousand of them graduated in the