Read Online When I Kill You by Michelle Wan - Free Book Online

her alibi. She was going out. And Stanley would go bump.
    Her plan was simple, and it was smart. As I listened to her talk, I really began to think I could have it all. I could get rid of Stanley, get Marcia off my back and drag Wild Woman Wanda through the mud.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    M arcia had told me to come around to the rear of the house because she didn’t want the neighbors to see her letting me in. She was waiting for me at the back door and jerked it open before I could knock.
    â€œWho—?” she started to say until she realized it was me in my new look. If she suspected I’d been preparing to cut and run, she didn’t say. Just, “Did you bring everything you need? I can’t be expected to supply anything. Nothing must link—”
    â€œI know,” I sneered, “to you.” The fact the murder was going to happen in her own home didn’t seem to count. As long as she was out of it. “Yeah, I got the stuff.” I had bought wire and nails from Home Hardware. I already had the hammer.
    She got right down to business. “The cellar stairs are off the kitchen.” She led the way in through a mudroom and a pantry. The kitchen was roomy and old-fashioned, with a worn tile floor and painted cupboards reaching to the ceiling. But the appliances were new and gleaming white. It figured.
    She pointed to a door at the far end and said in her hoity-toity twang, “I’ll leave you to it.” She stalked off, very lady-ofthe-manor. I was the hired help. Except I wasn’t being paid.
    I opened the cellar door and groped for a light switch. A single bulb dangling from the ceiling gave weak lighting to some very steep, narrow, wooden stairs. I went down them carefully, surprised no one had broken their neck on them before now. They ended in a real cellar, not a basement rec room. It had an earth floor, something you don’t see except in old houses. The fuse box was on the wall near the bottom of the stairs. There was a lot of dusty, cobwebby junk piled up all over the place. The air smelled damp and moldy.
    I chose the third step down. It wasn’t rocket science, two nails and a bit of wire strung tightly across the side supports. The job was done in five minutes. Then I realized there were two problems. First, I wasn’t supposed to trip the breaker until after eight o’clock. But if Stanley came down the stairs for any reason before then, he’d turn the light on and he’d go down carefully, like I did. A wire across any of the steps would be visible. I’d have to do something about the lightbulb. Second, I had forgotten to bring a wire cutter.
    â€œMarcia?” I called.
    No response. I went up into the kitchen and called again. I wandered through the dining room into the living room. Everything in the Beekland house was like a freeze-frame from an old movie. The furniture was heavy mahogany and overstuffed upholstery. The oak floors were highly polished with dark carpets here and there. Heavy curtains blocked out the sun. Gloomy paintings hung on the walls. There were knickknacks and framed photos everywhere. Gents in jackets and women in hats and mid-length dresses. There was a studio shot of a boy and a girl that I figured were the Beekland’s kids when they were little. They were both chubby and blond and had a discontented look that had stayed with them in later photos that I saw. I knew why, growing up with such parents.
    That was when I heard the wail. It was high-pitched—the same sound I’d heard when I’d prowled around the house four days ago, only weaker. It came from upstairs, and this time I knew it wasn’t a cat. I wondered again if the Beekland’s had a kid, but it sounded more like a soul in distress than a baby. Something funny was going on. All along I’d been praying for a way out. Maybe—just maybe —this was something I could use against Marcia to even the playing field.
    The big oak