Act of Evil Read Online Free PDF Page B

its barrel—and hidden the dreadful thing. This morning, before her father-in-law woke, she was determined to make the vanishing permanent.
    She put on the kettle and sat at the kitchen table while waiting for it to boil. She felt sleep-deprived and old. Morning sunshine, already warm, glowed through the window. The room faced east, overlooking the broad spread of Maple Bay. It was a magnificent outlook, unimpeded, since only a narrow garden strip, bounded by a sixty-foot-high cliff, separated the house from a vast panorama of islands and sea and sky. This was a significant reason—if not the main one—why the location was so coveted; old Fitz was right about that , at least.
    The kettle boiled and she made tea. She sipped on it gratefully, settling back at the table, and had just begun to feel slightly more relaxed when the other thing , pushed into the background by the trauma of her return, stumbled back into consciousness: the incident with Hal Bannatyne.
    Oh, dear God , she thought, feeling embarrassment and annoyance, plus a sneaking subsonic of pleasure, I must be out of my mind. What on Earth was I thinking?
    It had all started so innocently. When she’d first come upon him in Victoria the moment had been startling—and at first comical, to see him fall flat on his elegantly tailored tuchus. Mattie was surprised, dismayed, and amused equally. But what happened next was disturbing and set the note for everything that followed: still sprawled on the ground, Hal glanced in her direction . . .  and their eyes locked.
    Thinking of it, Mattie embarrassed herself all over again by re-experiencing the strange buzz that had occurred: they’d known each other—not just recognized, known —and something had been reactivated. As a result, she’d initiated a fiasco of a meeting, which in turn had ended in her flight. But then, still not done with self-immolation, she’d scrawled an apology— plus her phone number —and crept back, while Hal presumably was making out with his exotic actress, and left her pathetic note at the hotel desk.
    Of course, he’d never get it.
    Please God, he’d leave town today and never come back.
    But, oh—to see him just once more . . .
    â€œChrist, I’m even crazier than Fitz!” Mattie blurted to the empty kitchen. She slammed down her cup and stalked out to the mud room, where she fumbled into her old garden boots. Dressed in these and her robe, neither of which could quite disguise the elegance of her still-slim form, she strode out into the side yard.
    Across a shallow courtyard was a small outbuilding, mostly used as a woodshed. Last night she’d hurriedly stashed the shotgun in the shed behind a pile of logs. She fished it out, feeling a fresh jolt of nausea at the memory of what had almost happened, and—though her hands shook—determinedly broke it open. There they were, one spent cartridge, and the other—which, if fired, would likely have ended her life. “God damn you, old man,” she muttered, shaking both cartridges onto the ground, Her impulse was to throw down the gun and take an axe to it. Instead, she snapped it shut and fetched a spade. Behind the shed was a shaded place, with a thick mat of needles from the overhanging firs, where not even weeds grew. She raked aside the needles, dug a trench, dropped in the gun, covered and stomped down the earth, and finished by raking back the needle cover, noting with relief that there was no trace of her efforts. Rust in peace, you nasty thing! she thought, grimacing at the sour pun.
    She returned to the house—to discover she was not alone. Con Ryan was sitting on the stoop.
    â€œHi, Miz Trail,” Con said, “You’re gardening early.”
    Mattie glanced guiltily at her spade. But Con’s artless expression told her he knew nothing of what she’d been doing. Though he’d startled her, his presence was no