A Killing Spring Read Online Free PDF Page B

am dangerous. You know why? Because I’m a journalist, and if we’re good, we’re dangerous.” There was a long silence, and I wondered if she’d passed out. But as luck would have it, she rallied. “Stay tuned,” she slurred, then she slammed down the receiver so hard, it hurt my eardrum.
    I walked back to the bathroom, stepped into the shower stall, lifted my face towards the shower head and turned the water on full force. It was going to take a real blast to wash away the last three hours.

CHAPTER
3
    Tom Kelsoe’s book launch was being held at the university Faculty Club on the second floor of College West. I’d been to some great parties there, but as I walked through the door that night, I knew this wasn’t going to be one of them. Real shamrocks and shillelaghs that looked as if they could be real were everywhere, but the mood was sombre. The lounge to the right of the entrance area was jammed. Ordinarily, guests picked up their drinks at the bar and drifted into one of the larger rooms; that night, people weren’t drifting. It was apparent from their pale and anxious faces that the news of Reed Gallagher’s death had spread, and that the rumours were swirling.
    Several of the people I’d left messages for that afternoon spotted me in the doorway and came over. They were full of questions, but I hid behind Alex’s statement that, until the police had finished their investigations, Reed’s death was being classified as accidental. It wasn’t a satisfactory answer, but no one seemed to have the heart to press me.
    I made my way through to the bar and ordered Glenfiddichon the rocks. When it came, I took a long sip; the warmth spreading through my veins felt so good, I took another.
    “There are times when only single-malt Scotch will do.” The voice behind me was throaty and familiar.
    “And this is one of them,” I said. “Care to join me?”
    Jill Osiowy scrutinized my glass longingly. “Tom and I are off hard liquor,” she said.
    I turned to face her. There was no denying that the abstemious life agreed with her. I’d hedged when Taylor asked me about my feelings for Tom, but even I had to admit that the effect he was having on her lifestyle was a positive one. In the years I had known her, Jill had been a workaholic: routinely putting in fourteen-hour workdays, subsisting on junk food, too busy to exercise, and too tense at the end of the day to unwind without a couple of stiff drinks.
    Tom Kelsoe had changed all that. He was into vegetarianism and weight training, and now so was she. She had never been heavy, but now she was very lean and muscular. Her auburn hair was cut in a fashionable new way that made her look ten years younger. She was wearing black lace-up boots, form-fitting black velvet pants, and an extravagantly beautiful jade jacket with a black mandarin collar and elaborate black fastenings.
    “You look like about seven million dollars,” I said.
    “I feel like homemade shit.”
    “Where’s Tom?”
    “At the gym,” she said. “He says he has a lot of stuff to get through. Reed was his first boss when he got out of J school. He was like a father to Tom.”
    “How much does Tom know about what happened?”
    “Just what I told him, and I got that from you.” She shook her head in a gesture of disbelief. “Jo, what did happen?”
    I started to tell her what I knew. Then, over her shoulder, I saw Ed Mariani bobbing towards us. He was a portly andpleasant man, my favourite, by far, of the faculty at the School of Journalism. Earlier in the semester, I’d sat in on his lectures on the Politics of Image, and I’d understood why there were always waiting lists for the courses he taught. He was passionate about his subject, and while he was demanding with his students, he was genuinely excited about their response to what they were learning. In and out of class, Ed was fun, and, under normal circumstances, he would have been exactly the man I wanted to chat to at a party. But