Read Online The House on Tradd Street by Karen White - Free Book Online Page A

a stop sign, I looked at a dilapidated single-story frame house, the porch roof sagging like a drooping eyelid. Sitting in a porch chair was an old man in army fatigues looking at me. I registered immediately that he didn’t have any legs and that blood from a bullet wound still clung to his forehead. Shaken, I looked away.
    “You look beautiful, by the way. Although I’m not sure why you changed your hair.” He again smiled that smile that I was sure was intended to make women melt, not that I had any intention of being affected by it.
    “Um, thank you.” I smoothed my hand over my hair. “I decided last minute that it looked better down.”
    He nodded, steering the small car down a street filled with abandoned businesses and pawnbrokers. “We’re going to Blackbeard’s—have you been there?”
    Surely not. “No, actually, although the name is familiar—but I’m sure it’s not the same place I’m thinking of. Is it new?”
    “Not exactly. I think it’s been here since before Prohibition. It’s not exactly on the tourist path—which is what I like. Best boiled shrimp I’ve ever had, though.”
    “Great,” I said, not really picturing the messy eating of shrimp the ideal thing to do on a first date. There’s nothing as flattering as little shrimp legs stuck between your teeth when you smiled.
    Jack pulled into a parking spot in front of an establishment I could only describe as a “dive,” and stopped the engine. Unfortunately, I knew the place well although I’d never had to actually step inside. A man and a woman were wrapped in a tight embrace with lips locked; they appeared to be having fully dressed sex against the wall of the building. Loud music and drunken laughter floated over to me, and I looked around, wondering if there was another place nearby I could suggest instead of Blackbeard’s. When I turned to Jack to ask, I was surprised to find him leaning toward me with his arm outstretched.
    Without a word, he systematically plucked two bobby pins out of my hair and held them out in front of me. “You forgot these.”
    “Thanks,” I said, grasping the pins, my attention shifting again to the bar we’d parked in front of. The name on the sign over the door read Blackbeard’s Bar and Grill. My images of broiled salmon and turtle soup fled, quickly supplanted by the image of a plastic bib big enough to cover my designer dress so I wouldn’t get shrimp peelings all over it.
    I looked down the street, not seeing the familiar 1986 navy blue LeSabre I had been praying I wouldn’t see. “We’re eating here?” I couldn’t quite hide the peevishness in my voice.
    “Trust me—you’ll love the food. And the ambience isn’t too bad, either.”
    “Compared to what?” I asked under my breath as I allowed him to lead me inside.
    The interior of the establishment was a definite improvement over the exterior. I don’t know if I was expecting dirt and rushes to be covering the floor, but I was surprised to see highly polished wood instead. Several people turned around to shout greetings at Jack, and he returned each one by name. I scanned the crowd, sighing with relief when I didn’t recognize anybody.
    We were escorted by a fawning girl whose mincing footsteps seemed to be hampered by her voluminous breasts, both of which appeared to be of enormous interest to my date.
    She brought us to a clean table in a back corner, where the Southern rock being played by the live band wasn’t too loud to talk over. The girl placed two plastic menus on the linoleum table, then kissed Jack on the lips before walking away with our drink orders, her hips swaying in the age-old human mating ritual.
    Jack took his eyes off the departing waitress long enough to pull my chair out for me, and I sat, trying to unobtrusively wipe off my seat before sitting down. He pulled his own chair up to the table. “Isn’t this great?”
    “Oh, definitely,” I said as I looked around, wishing I’d brought my