Read Online Splintered Bones by Carolyn Haines - Free Book Online Page B

arrangements. There was no one else to do it. Thursday. Eleven o'clock. St. Lucy's Cemetery."
    "Thank you, Cece." I meant it. "I know Lee will appreciate it."
    "I'd have her there, Sarah Booth. For her daughter's sake and for appearances."
    I nodded. "I could kiss you."
    Cece held up one hand like Diana Ross stopping love. "Control yourself, Sarah Booth. We're friends, but you're not my type. Speaking of types, wherever are you going to get a date for the hunt ball? I've racked my brain, and I can't think of a single man who would take you on."
    I stopped at the Pig and bought food. In concession to Kip's age, I included some chips and colas, but I also got shredded cabbage, catfish, and the makings for hush puppies and fries. I wasn't certain what type of food Kip liked, but no one in her right mind could resist fried catfish and all the trimmings. Grocery sacks in hand, I hustled in the back door. Sweetie was sound asleep on the kitchen floor, and there was no sign of Kip.
    I checked in my bedroom, where the computer screen saver shifted from Mickey Spillane to Dick Tracy and a host of other cartoon renderings of detectives. Kip had been at work on the computer and failed to shut it down.
    I knocked at her door. No answer. Feeling as if I were committing a crime, I opened the door of her room. Her clothes were all over the floor, along with CDs, books, magazines, and makeup.
    "She's gone."
    I turned to find Jitty peering over my shoulder. "So I see."
    "She's very unhappy," Jitty said.
    She wasn't telling me anything I didn't know. "I'm worried about her."
    ""Worried that she's unhappy, or worried that she has a reason to be unhappy?"
    While I couldn't confess my concerns to anyone else, I could tell them to Jitty. She couldn't repeat them, because no one else could hear her.
    "What if she killed Kemper?" I asked, nudging a CD with my toe. The band on the cover looked as if they could be Satan worshipers.
    "What if she did?"
    It was the crux of my dilemma. Lee had not hired me to prove her innocence; she'd hired me to prove that Kemper was a bastard. The reason for this fine distinction might very well be Kip. I saw Lee's strategy very clearly now. She had confessed, which would prevent a full-scale investigation of the murder. She wanted me to provide the evidence that Kemper was a worthless piece of work, which no one disputed. That would keep the focus of the trial on Kemper--and away from Kip. Lee had stepped onto an oily tightrope. If she could actually convince a jury of her peers of Kemper's role as abscess on the butt of the world, the right jury just might acquit her. She was correct; it had happened before. Barring that, she might get manslaughter and a sentence that amounted to county jail and probation. She could still keep Swift Level up and running and Kip safe. But it was a dangerous, dangerous game.
    The thing that troubled me was Lee's first lie--that Kemper had attacked her and provoked his death. There had not been a single mark on Lee in that jail cell. A smart prosecutor, and Lincoln Bangs was not stupid, would have noticed that. That and the fact that Lee had never reported Kemper's repeated abuse of her, not one single time.
    "Look at this mess." Jitty's voice pulled me back to the disarray of Kip's room. Had it not been a perfect reflection of my own room, I would have been forced to have the old "cleanliness is next to godliness" conversation with Kip. Spared by my own vices.
    I turned around to leave and felt something crack beneath my shoe. Mascara. A black makeup kit was open on the floor, the contents spilling out. A tip of blue plastic caught my eye. I looked over at Jitty.
    "She's your responsibility," she said.
    I knelt down. The syringe was still in the plastic case, unused. I dumped the lipstick, mascara, and eyeliner pencils onto the floor. There was nothing else. No vials of medicine, no plastic bags of white powder. Just the syringe.
    The phone rang and I walked to my room to answer