Bitch Factor Read Online Free PDF Page A

house, with all their things here, but not them, I’d be sad.”
    Dixie studied the framed family pictures on the bottom shelf of the hutch and searched for sadness in those familiar treasures. She didn’t find it.
    “Mom says there’s lots of guys around who wouldn’t mind being an uncle.” He opened the Parker Dann file, where she had tossed it on the buffet, and stood flipping the cover lazily back and forth. “She says, pick up any newspaper and read the personals.”
    “Did you tell her some of those guys are creeps you wouldn’t want for an uncle?”
    The shoulder roll again. “She says the men you meet doing the work you do are creeps.” He hurried on, tugging acrumpled page of newsprint from his pocket. “Look at this. Some of the ads are guys with motorcycles and speedboats.”
    “Hey, whose side are you on, kid?” Dixie could hear Amy’s influence in Ryan’s words. She was used to Amy trying to pat and tuck Dixie’s life into her own idea of perfection, but Ryan had always thought his aunt’s work was “cool.” And what he thought mattered. Dixie couldn’t help wanting to be a hero in her nephew’s eyes.
    “I’m on your side,” he said. “I asked Mom if I could stay here and keep you company during school break.” He dipped his head. “She said you wouldn’t be home enough to notice.”
    Unfolding the paper, he showed her an ad he’d circled in red marker.
    “‘DWM, forty-five,’” she read. “Divorced white male? ‘Six-foot-five, two hundred pounds’?” At five-four, 120 pounds, Dixie would feel like a dwarf by such a man. “The age is okay, I guess.”
    “Look at the best part. He likes to hang glide and bungee jump. That’s dangerous stuff, like you chasing criminals.”
    “Dangerous?” She grinned at him. “Bungee jumping is insane”
    Then her gaze fell on the file Ryan was fingering, and she remembered she needed to call Belle Richards. Frankly, she didn’t want to risk missing Christmas with her family just to chase down some drunk driver. She should call now, give the attorney enough time to hire another skip tracer.
    “Hey, I know her!” Ryan was looking down at the file. The Richards, Blackmon & Drake label was plastered on the front.
    “Ms. Richards? Sure, you met her in the summer.” In August Ryan had spent a week with Dixie, and she’d taken him by the lawyer’s office.
    “I mean Elizabeth Keyes, the girl who was run over.”
    “Are you sure?” Their schools were miles apart.
    “Yeah. We met last year, during the Kids in the Arts project. Remember, my drawing won a District Honorable Mention. So did Betsy’s story. And after the accident, a safety cop came to talk to us about it.” Ryan turned to the newspaperphoto taken in the courtroom. “They’re going to fry this guy that killed Betsy, aren’t they?”
    Watching the taillights on Carl’s Buick fade into the night, Dixie mentally ticked off the places Parker Dann was most likely to be found at nine o’clock two nights before Christmas. According to the depositions in his file, the man’s closest friend was a bartender at the Green Hornet Saloon. A neighbor woman, obviously an admirer, had called Dann “a charming, thoughtful gentleman who always ran the lawn mower over her front yard when he finished cutting his own.” Perhaps the neighbor invited the “charming gentleman” over for some Christmas cheer.
    In addition to the Green Hornet, Dann frequented neighborhood coffeehouses, restaurants, movies—places where people were likely to congregate. He didn’t travel, except for work-related trips, which had ceased with his arrest and subsequent release on bail. Most of Dann’s bumming-around time appeared to be spent within a few city blocks.
    All through dinner, Ryan’s words had kept nagging at her: They’re going to fry this guy … aren’t they? Sure. If he didn’t skip the country while the judge and jury were opening their Christmas gifts. When Amy offered to serve the