Aurora 07 - Last Scene Alive Read Online Free PDF Page A

climbed into my high four-poster. I had lots of pillows, a comfortable bed, and a good book.
    Martin hadn’t really liked my reading in bed. To Martin, a bed was for sleeping in or making love on, not for reading or lolling of any kind. For the most part, I’d read downstairs in the den while we were married. Now, this was one of the moments of the day to which I actually looked forward; and if it was raining outside or cold, or both, and I could swathe myself in blankets, so much the better. The night was mild outside my windows this evening, but as I pulled up the clean sheet I came as close as I could, these days, to being happy. I was reading a new C. J. Songer, too, an added bonus.
    Just when I was getting drowsy, the phone rang. I leaned forward to check my caller-ID
    device. I picked up the phone, already smiling.
    Angel said, “I got a question to ask you.”
    Angel and Shelby Youngblood were both very direct, Angel more so than her husband.
    Shelby, a Vietnam vet and one of the toughest men I’d ever met, had learned to approach certain topics sideways rather than straight on, something I didn’t think would ever occur to Angel. Their little girl Joan was going to have to be one sturdy kid. Already, at nearly a year old, Joan seemed more independent than most babies her age. At least Angel told me so.
    “Shoot,” I told her.
    “You mind if I work this movie? I got a call from a guy who asked if I wanted to do stunts.”
    Everyone, everyone , wanted to work for the damn movie. I had a moment’s flash of intense resentment, an irrational conviction that all the people of Lawrenceton should shun the movie and the moviemakers, not rent or sell to them, not be employed by them, and all for my sake, because I didn’t want this film made.
    “Of course you ought to,” I said calmly. “I know it’s been years since you got any stunt work, and you must miss it.”
    “Thanks,” Angel said. She was so direct herself that it seldom occurred to her that people didn’t exactly mean what they said. “If you’re sure. We’re trying to save up for a swimming pool for Joan.”
    “Above ground?”
    “Nope, in-ground. So we got a ways to go.”
    I silently exhaled. “Well, you better get to it. Bye, Angel.”
    “See you soon, Roe.”
    I thought it was the perfect cap to a perfect day. What could happen tomorrow , I asked myself rhetorically, that would make it any worse than today ?
    I should have known better than to ask myself any such a thing.

Chapter Three
    I didn’t have to work that Thursday, so I didn’t get up until about seven-thirty. Catherine Quick, the maid, was supposed to be coming in that afternoon, so I didn’t have to make my bed; she’d be changing the sheets. I trotted down the stairs to put on the coffeepot, and I popped an English muffin in the toaster before I went to the living room at the front of the house to look out. Though the air was chilly that morning, making me glad I’d pulled on jeans and a sweater before I came downstairs, it was going to warm up and be a beautiful day. The air was crystal clear, the sky so blue it almost sparkled. I told myself I wouldn’t worry that day, wouldn’t think about the movie at all. Maybe I would call Sally Allison to see if she could have lunch with me. Since she was a reporter, Sally always knew what was going on in Lawrenceton.
    The kitchen had two doors, the back one opening onto our patio, and the side one opening under the covered walkway leading to the garage. Madeleine’s cat flap was in the patio door, and she made an entrance just about this time every morning, tired from her night’s adventures and ready to eat her kibble. But this morning, though I filled her bowl and renewed her water, she didn’t show. Maybe I’d see her when I went down the long driveway to fetch my newspaper.
    I opened the side door and made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a shriek. The young man sitting on the steps jumped up, dumping Madeleine off