Read Online Scrapped by Mollie Cox Bryan - Free Book Online Page B

they were, a dream come true.
    But wait. She turned to see where the music was coming from and turned back, and he was gone. A sinking, sickening feeling came over her. Where was her husband? Her best friend? How could he leave her?
     
     
    Beatrice awoke with words from Leaves of Grass turning over in her mind. What a dream. She reached up to her cheek and wiped a salty tear from her face.
    “Stupid old woman,” she said out loud, then heard a weird noise downstairs. What was that? Something outside, or was it in her front room?
    She reached in the drawer for her trusty pistol, felt its cool steel. She slowly unraveled herself from the blankets, sat up, and placed her bare feet on the floor. Her bedroom door was already open—she had started leaving it open because more and more she was concerned about intruders, with all the recent unexplained incidents. She wanted immediate access to whoever was fool enough to enter her home uninvited. Not just her, but her and her gun, which freaked Vera out to no end. That made Beatrice grin even as she heard another scuffling noise. This time she was sure that it wasn’t in her head and that it was at her front door.
    She glanced at her digital clock: 5:30 a.m. What fool of a thief would be out and about at that time?
    She walked gingerly down the hallway and saw streams of soft morning light coming through her stained-glass window. She began to descend the steps. So quiet. One step creaked—it always did. Confound it! Her heart skipped a beat as she wondered if the person at her front porch could hear it. She stood quietly for a moment and then began to move again. She swore she could feel the blood rush through her body. If only her joints did not ache so much this morning, she’d have already shot the guy.
    The phone interrupted her last step to the first floor. Blast! Who would be calling at this hour? She let it ring. Let the goddamned answering machine pick up.
    “Ms. Matthews? It’s Detective Bryant,” the voice said. “I don’t want to frighten you, but I am on your front porch and can hear you rattling around inside. So maybe you just better put that pistol down and open the door.”
    What? What was he doing here? He knew her too well, knew all about that pistol. She had just taken another gun safety class, and he happened to be the teacher, supplementing from his day job as a detective.
    She peeked out the peephole, and he waved.
    She unlocked the door. “What’s going on, Bryant?” she said as she flung it open.
    “I’m sorry to disturb you—”
    “Get on with it,” she said, waving her hand around.
    “There’s been some vandalism.”
    “Why are you involving me?”
    He stepped back and pointed to her house. “C’mon out here, Ms. Matthews.”
    She realized what a fool thing it was to have come downstairs without her robe and slippers as she stood in the cold October morning, looking at the strange rune symbol painted on her pink house.
    “What on earth?” She put her hands on her hips and looked at him.
    “Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Until you realize the idiot was probably after Annie and her family.”
    “What do you mean? How do you know that? Why Annie?”
    “Your house number is six-ten. Hers is six-oh-one. It took me a while to think of that. But that has to be it,” he said, with a look of crushing concern.
    Beatrice shivered. “C’mon in out of the cold, Bryant. Let me get you some coffee.”

Chapter 17
    Every time Mike and the boys left the house on Mondays, Annie felt an onslaught of freedom and relief, tinged with a little guilt. Should she feel this happy because she had the whole house and the whole day to herself? She didn’t know what mess to tackle first, while her work called to her.
    She straightened up the kitchen, always first, putting the dishes in the dishwasher, putting away all the cereal boxes and the milk and so on. She called Hannah Bowman, the young woman from the wake, who wasn’t at the bakery where she