Read Online Skeleton in a Dead Space (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery) by Judy Alter - Free Book Online

leave your job?”
    He shrugged. “It’s a friend. He bought the house for himself. I told him it wasn’t worth fixing, but he’s determined. I’ll work for him when there’s nothing more important.” Clearly, I was more important.
    We were at the house in three minutes. Anthony tsk-tsk-ed over the shattered door, now covered by plywood, and took measurements that he wrote on a piece of paper. He handed it to me.
    “Want to go with me to pick the door?”
    “Yeah, I’d like to do that. I trust you, but I gotta see that it would work.”
    On the way to College Avenue, a short drive, I said, “Tim called.”
    “The husband? Don’t mess with him, Miss Kelly. He’s no good.”
    “He’s heard about what’s going on—the skeleton, the fire, the front door—and he wants to take the girls to protect them.”
    “No,” Anthony said vehemently. “You must not let him. Does he care about the girls?”
    I shrugged and thought a minute. “Yes, I suppose he does, but only as long as they don’t interfere with what he wants to do. Would he use them to get at me? Yeah, I think he would.”
    “Your children,” he said, “are God’s blessing. You got to protect them. How did he know about all that so quick?”
    I looked at him. “I’ve been puzzling on that this morning. I don’t have any idea. There are a few people that might have called him—and they might have seen the pieces in the paper about the skeleton and the fire, but they wouldn’t have known about the front door.” Florence Dodson? I doubted that. Mrs. Dodson didn’t much like men. Dave Shirley, the insurance agent? I hadn’t even called him about the door yet. One of Tim’s old drinking buddies might have seen the skeleton and fire in the newspaper, but the front door….
    He made a fist and rubbed it. “You need me to talk to him, I will.”
    I smiled. “Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind. But you don’t think I’m putting the girls in danger, do you?”
    Anthony shook his head. “About that, I don’t know. I’m afraid for you, and if you’re in danger, then those precious girls are also. Why don’t you talk to that cop—Mike what’s-his-name? I think he’s sweet on you.”
    “Anthony, just because we’re both single and about the same age, don’t go matchmaking. Mike’s posted a guard at the house….”
    “Guard? I didn’t see no guard just now.”
    “That’s by design. They don’t want to be noticed.”
    “Oh, okay. But you talk to him anyway. Tell him about Tim. You never know if your ex-husband will do something crazy. I didn’t like him. I got a bad feeling from him.”
    “Me, too,” I said. But I used to feel so good about him. How do people change so much? And which one of us changed? I switched the subject. Just talking to Anthony strengthened me. He was, I decided, one of the most rooted and stable people in my world—and the other might just be Keisha. They were the ones I should have called last night instead of feeling sorry for myself alone.
    “I’m sorry Theresa isn’t feeling well today. I was surprised when she answered the phone a bit ago.”
    “Theresa at home?” There was no denying the surprise in his voice. “She went to school this morning, like she should.”
    My heart stopped for a second. I owed Anthony the truth. “She told me she didn’t feel well, and you told her to stay home.”
    He put his head in his hands. “Miss Kelly, I don’t know what to do with her. She’s…she’s running with some friends I don’t like, maybe even gangers, and she don’t listen to me anymore. I’ll take a strap to her when I get home.”
    No one ever took a strap to me in my life, nor could I imagine doing it to the girls, let alone a seventeen-year-old. “No, Anthony, don’t do that. Talk to her. Find out what’s going on. I’ll help any way I can. Maybe she’d come stay at the house a few days, think things through.” I realized that was a lame offer—if Tim didn’t’ think my home was safe