Read Online The Sword of God - John Milton #5 (John Milton Thrillers) by Mark Dawson - Free Book Online Page A

old you are, Mallory?”
    “Nineteen,” she said, the forced categorical answer coming across as unconvincing.
    “How old really?”
    “Sixteen,” she said.
    He stared at her, hard.
    “Fifteen.”
    “And you’re driving this bucket?”
    “You can drive when you’re fourteen in Michigan,” she said indignantly.
    “With an adult.”
    “Yeah, well… like I said, I’m fifteen, okay? Have you finished questioning me? You’re not my father, Mr. Milton.”
    He regarded her again shrewdly, and then a little forbearance broke across the impassivity of his face. “Go on, then, Mallory. Why don’t you tell me what you want to speak to me about?”
    “Here? In the car?”
    “Where else?”
    “I bet they didn’t give you breakfast in jail, right? I thought maybe we could get breakfast. There’s this place down the road a ways… anyway, I thought we could do that. And, like, I’m paying.”
    “I’m not a vagrant, Mallory. I can pay my own way.”
    “So you’ll come? You’ll listen to me?”
    “Sure,” he said. “If you give me a ride back here afterwards, we can have breakfast.”
     
    THE CAFÉ was on Main Street and was famous locally for its grits. Mallory’s father had been friendly with the proprietor, and she gave her a nod as she led Milton inside. Mallory ducked her head, not because she was ill-mannered, but because she didn’t want to answer the inevitable questions about how she was doing. There had been sympathy in the aftermath of his death, but now, the questions and the comments just raked up the memories that she had tried so hard to bury with him when they laid him in the ground. Others were worse, the religious types who she knew were thinking that because he had done it himself that he had damned his soul to Hell, or purgatory, or wherever it was that people who killed themselves went to suffer. Mallory had no time for any of that nonsense. She was a practical girl, and there were practical things that she needed to deal with.
    The most pressing issue, the one that stopped her sleeping at nights, was Arthur.
    They went to a table in the window and sat down. Mallory took the menus and passed one to Milton.
    The waitress came across. “What can I get for you?”
    “Pancakes, eggs, sausage, potatoes and bacon, please.”
    “How’d you like your eggs?”
    “Over easy.”
    “And to drink?”
    “Coffee and orange juice.”
    She turned to Mallory. “What you want, sugar?”
    “A cup of coffee, please.”
    “You’re not going to eat?” he asked her.
    “Not really hungry,” she said, although that wasn’t true. Her stomach was empty, but the roiling sensation was more from nerves.
    The waitress went to the back with their order. Mallory knew why she was nervous: this man was likely her last chance, and she didn’t want him to think that she was crazy, like the sheriff and some of the others she had mentioned this to so clearly did. There was a lot riding on this conversation and on the first impression she gave him.
    She summoned up the courage to begin. “Thanks for this, Mr. Milton,” she said, waving her hand vaguely. “For coming, I mean.”
    “Call me John,” he said.
    “I’d rather call you Mr. Milton, if that’s okay?”
    “You can call me whatever you want.”
    “I know you probably think I’m weird, following you and all that, but I’m not. Weird, I mean. This, what I’m about to tell you, this is all straight up.”
    He nodded. He was paying attention, apparently taking her seriously. That was good.
    She took another breath. “I live out on the edge of town. We’ve got an RV. It’s me and my brother, Arthur. I call him Arty. He’s what you’d probably call simple. There were problems when he was born, the cord got wrapped around his throat, and he didn’t get enough oxygen until they were able to get it cut away. He got brain damage because of it. It’s not terrible, I’m not saying he’s a vegetable or anything like that, but he’s slow. He’s