Bitch Factor Read Online Free PDF

pecan pie, warmed in the microwave and topped with buttered-pecan ice cream, Dixie had slipped into the bedroom, phoned Belle, and agreed to keep an eye on Dann over the holidays. What could it take, an hour maybe, to check out his favorite haunts? Once she found him, she’d slap a tracking transmitter on his car—an expensive little toy that would let her know if he exceeded a fifty-mile radius from Houston. Then she’d go back to celebrating Christmas.
    When Carl’s taillights finally turned the corner, Dixie shut the front door and began to seal up the Christmas boxes she’d brought down from the attic. A brass horn clattered to the rug. She picked it up. Amy’s designer tree had turned out fine, but a few pieces from the family collection might help the red and gold spectacle fit in better with Dixie’s traditional livingroom. The brass horn had adorned the Flannigan tree every Christmas Dixie could remember. She clipped it near a red bulb that immediately warmed the brass with a rosy glow.
    About to close the box again, she noticed a string of crystal snowflakes. She had always loved those snowflakes—and the tree needed a spot of white.
    During dinner, she’d also figured out how to handle Amy’s holiday matchmaking: simply play along . Later, while she and Amy were loading the dishwasher, Dixie “confessed” that she looked forward to meeting Delbert Snelling. She could pretend to be smitten when the day actually arrived—“Delbert’s really the nicest man, Sis, just as you said”—which would keep Amy from dragging up any other strays. At the same time, Dixie could come off so obnoxious Snelling would never call her for a date. By the time Amy figured it out, the holidays would be long past.
    Hanging the last ornament, a pudgy Santa’s face fashioned from cotton and yarn, Dixie pronounced the tree finished. She tossed the empty box in a corner, unplugged the lights, and heaved a resigned sigh: might as well start looking for Parker Dann. By now, he should be mildly sotted and easy to find. She grabbed his file from the buffet and her jacket from the closet.
    As she strode through the kitchen, a piece of paper fluttered on the refrigerator door, anchored with a magnet Ryan had made in art class—a ceramic heart framing his school picture. Dixie stopped to look. On the notepaper, a neatly printed block read:
    SWF, 39, BROWN HAIR, BROWN EYES, AND STILL PRETTY FOXY. LIKES AWESOMELY DANGEROUS SPORTS LIKE DOWNHILL DIRT BIKING. SOMETIMES BRINGS HER 12-YEAR-OLD NEPHEW.
    Below that, Ryan had scrawled: Dear Aunt Dixie: I’ll put this on the Internet tonight and scan in a snapshot of you from when we went swimming last summer. You’ll have loads of replies by New Years. So don’t worry about Old Snelling .

 

    Chapter Four
     
    Feed a cop and you’ve got a friend for life, an attorney had told Dixie when she joined the DA’s staff. At the time, the remark had rubbed her naive sense of ethics the wrong way.
    In fact, the value of networking—building a grid of people who knew other people who knew other, possibly very important, people—eluded her until the day a patrolman in Denver witnessed a situation that helped Dixie nail a husband-wife burglary team in Houston. Working off-duty at a Rockies game, the patrolman saw the couple talking to a local fence they claimed never to have met. Bingo! Dixie closed the case quick as a hiccup. Now she had law enforcement contacts in forty-two of the fifty states—and the night truly had a thousand eyes.
    She’d need all of them if Parker Dann had fled to Canada.
    Slim Jim McGrue of the Texas Highway Patrol had come through more than once over the years. McGrue could be a big help tonight, too, if Dixie could only talk him into it. Unfortunately, the fact that Dann had not yet officially jumped bail prevented her from being totally honest.
    After checking around Dann’s neighborhood without luck, Dixie had jimmied the lock on his back door. She found the small