Read Online Smash Cut by Sandra Brown - Free Book Online

homicide would have to keep until he slept. His brain was almost as tired as his body.
He pushed open his bedroom door. Before leaving for Paris, he’d closed the shutters, and they were still closed. The room was dark except for the floor lamp beside his leather reading chair. The lamp had been dimmed to provide only a dull glow on that side of the room. The housekeeper, who’d come even during his absence, had left everything spotless, ready for his return.
Maggie was stretched out on the bed.
She didn’t even lift her head from the pillow when he appeared, but her eyes were brimming with reproach. Even before crossing the threshold into the room, he said, “Look, first of all, I know you’re still pissed because I didn’t take you with me. But you and Mom have never got along, and this trip was about her.”
Bravely entering the room, he laid his jacket on the chair and finished unbuttoning his shirt as he toed off his shoes. “And I know you expected me to come home as soon as I landed, but there were pressing matters that needed my immediate attention.”
He approached the bed and sat down on the edge of it. Maggie rolled onto her back. “Mags.” He sighed, turned away, stared into near space for a moment. He never asked a client whether or not they’d done the deed for which they were charged. He didn’t need to know because it wasn’t his job to pass judgment. His job was to see that the accused received the best possible defense.
But experience had taught him that most people who were guilty of a malfeasance were just itching to confess it. Like he was now. “Mags, something happened on the return flight that you should know. I met somebody. A woman.” He glanced down. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not in the habit of picking up women on airplanes. It was the shortest fling I’ve ever had. Besides, she shut me down. It was over before it started.” He turned to her, scratched her tummy. “So I’m still all yours.”
The chocolate Lab whined, then sat up and enthusiastically licked the side of his face.
“Thanks for understanding.”
The dog nuzzled his neck while he scratched her behind the ears. “Come on,” he said, patting her rump as he stood up. “Keep me company while I take a shower.” He noticed she took her time coming off the bed. “Is your arthritis acting up? I’ll call the vet tomorrow. And by the way, you’re not supposed to be on the bed.”
While Maggie dozed on the bathroom rug, he took a long, hot shower, letting the water pulse against his shoulders until his skin was stinging. When he got out, he toweled off and gave his hair sixty seconds with the dryer, then wrapped the towel around his middle and returned to his bedroom, where he set the alarm clock on his nightstand. “Do you need to go out?”
Rather than head for the door, Maggie circled her mat at the end of his bed, then lay down, settling her head on her front paws. “Okay, but it’s a long time till morning. Remember I asked.”
He removed the towel and peeled back the covers on his bed. Sighing gratefully, he slid between the cool sheets and picked up the TV remote. He scrolled through his TiVo list and highlighted the local evening news. It was set to record every day because he often didn’t get home in time to watch it live. He probably wouldn’t make it till the first commercial tonight.
But he bunched his pillow beneath his head and brought up the picture on the flat screen mounted on the wall opposite his bed. The lead story was a major wreck involving a school bus. Bleeding kids, distraught parents, two small yellow body bags on the ground.
He fast-forwarded through that story and the one that followed, about patient mistreatment in a nursing home. He stopped when a picture of a Doug Wheeler look-alike flashed onto his screen. The name superimposed beneath it was Paul Wheeler. He caught the anchorwoman in midsentence, giving a recap of the crime.
There was a sound bite from Homer Sanford, who was lamenting the scarcity of solid