Read Online Summerkill by Maryann Weber - Free Book Online Page B

thing didn’t work
     out, though, I’d definitely summon them into my corner.
    At a few minutes past ten there was a spirited banging that set Roxy to barking furiously from the living room. Having programmed
     in the number for the cops out front, I grabbed my cell phone and speed-dialed. “Somebody’s outside my porch, pounding on
     the door. Did you guys send anyone back?”
    “Nope. One of us better come check.”
    “Hold on a sec.” I reminded myself it was a solid door, securely locked, and whoever was out there listening to Roxy could
     not see her tail wagging. The intruder wasn’t persisting with the noise-making, and the boys could do without a larger commotion.
     “I don’t think you need to bother. My dog seems to have scared them off.”
    “There were several news guys hanging around bugging us. My guess is one of them managed to pick his way around through the
     woods, hoping to get at you. More of a nuisance than a danger, but if you’d like one of us to reposition back there for a
     while—”
    “No, I think we’re fine.”
    About half an hour later the cell phone beeped. “Do you know somebody named Sandy Borland?” the cop asked brusquely when I
     answered.
    The Garden Center’s ill-chosen summer intern. “Sure. We work together.”
    “She claims she didn’t come all this way just for the exercise. Want to talk with her?”
    “Send her on back.”
    I watched from the kitchen doorway as the one headlight made its up-down way along the driveway. Sandy’s vehicle is a bicycle,
     her rented room is in the village. She’d never been out to my place, and I wondered how she’d managed to find it, especially
     in the dark. Also why.
    She dismounted and approached. Plain of face and flat of chest, Sandy must, like me, have come to realize early on that she
     wasn’t going to make the cut for the traditional male concept of femininity. In her unrelentingly serious expression, touchy
     independence, and strong appetite for physical work she reminded me of myself at that age. I’ve mellowed some, or so my older
     friends allow. Sandy was in a totally pissed-offat-life phase, an orientation her recent coming-out seemed only to have intensified.
     With her cultivated unwashed look and prickly disposition I thought it unlikely she attracted many members of her own sex,
     either.
    I felt mildly guilty about Sandy’s rotten summer, having been the one to tell Willem’s parents about the intern program they
     acquired her from. Hiring anyone sight unseen is a mistake for the Garden Center—appearance may not be all for Eleanor and
     Rodney, but it’s way up there. After the first horrified appraisal they started compiling a list of minimum-visibility assignments.
     Minimum interest, too, most of them. I’d appropriated her for a little of Mariah’s stuff—they would not let her near Hudson
     Heights. She knew damn well what was going on and was furious but couldn’t afford to have a walk-away on her record. They’d
     have loved to ship her back but didn’t dare, discrimination suits being so fashionable these days.
    “Come on in,” I said, patting Roxy reassuringly; her tail was not up and wagging. “You must’ve had a long ride.”
    “From the village?” she said dismissively. “I tried and tried to call but your answering machine never stopped beeping. Doesn’t
     it work?”
    “The tape keeps running out. Would you like a beer or something?”
    “Water. From the tap is fine. I was there this morning, you know. When the cops came.”
    Running the water, I concluded she couldn’t possibly have meant my front yard. “What sort of things did they ask you?”
    “Me? I was in back. Filing.” Her pronunciation of the word spoke volumes. “It was the royal family they interviewed. Minus
     its crown prince, who’d found a more fun place to spend the night and was running a little late.”
    Willem alone among the family members tried to be friendly, but he was so inept dealing with