Blood Bond Read Online Free PDF Page A

assessing everyone in the room.
    â€œHe was polite,” Marva said noncommittally. “He got me a glass of water.”
    Gail raised one well-shaped eyebrow. “You didn’t offer him something first?”
    Marva rolled her eyes. “Sorry. Next time I’ll mix him a drink, okay? Cut him some cake?”
    Gail gave her a devilish smile: “A shame about that cake. You didn’t think to cover it, did you? I mean, it would be so good with coffee.”
    Teasing, now; charming. Marva was increasingly uneasy as her sister slipped further into the role she played so well. “I have to go in tomorrow and do it again. Give an official statement.”
    â€œOh, I think us, too. I don’t know if Bryce and I get some sort of, what do you call it, special inquisition, since it was our house and all.”
    â€œMaybe you’ll get a good cop and a bad one,” Marva suggested. She took Gail’s glass out of her hand and sipped—the warm yeasty smell suddenly appealed to her. “Or maybe they’ll try to get you and Bryce to give each other up.”
    Gail flashed a smile, but just as quickly it disappeared and she settled farther into the corner of the couch. Only then did Marva notice something new: a fine web of lines around her sister’s eyes, a crosshatching around her lips. Signs of age. So she wasn’t impervious after all.
    â€œIt was horrible to see Tom like that,” Gail murmured suddenly, her lips trembling. “He was . . .”
    She swallowed, hard, and pushed impatiently at a few wisps of hair that had escaped her headband. Marva’s heartbeat hitched. This, she couldn’t stand—seeing Gail break.
    â€œI know,” she said softly, setting down the wineglass and taking Gail’s hands in hers. They were surprisingly cold, and Marva rubbed them gently.
    â€œIn the porch light—he just looked so odd, the way he was lying on the ground. And by the time I got close—I was one step away from, from stepping in that blood, Marva—and I stopped with my foot in the air, you know, like in freeze tag—because I knew, I just knew he was dead.”
    She looked up, her pupils so small in the pale depths of her sea-glass eyes, as though she couldn’t bear to let in the light.
    Marva knew better.
    And yet.
    â€œWere you sleeping with him?” Marva asked, as gently as she could. And like that the shutters went up, the invisible ones, and Gail blinked and looked away, tugging back her hands and reaching for the wine.
    â€œYou could have waited to ask me that,” she said, suddenly sounding exhausted.
    â€œGail . . .”
    â€œBut that wouldn’t be your style. So yes, I slept with him. One time. Though in truth I probably would have done it again, eventually. Come on, Marva, he’s two doors down, and Elena’s got that awful commute and she’s never home, we were two of a kind . . .”
    Marva shrugged; there was no point in contradicting her. The words were familiar, from other confidences she hadn’t asked to hear: Neglected spouses. Harmless entertainment. Ultimate discretion . Gail had been there before.
    â€œAre you going to tell anyone?” Marva asked. Anyone—meaning the cops.
    â€œIs anyone going to ask? I don’t think so,” Gail retorted with surprising conviction. “Besides, don’t they always suspect the spouse first?”
    â€œBut Elena was inside, at the dinner table . . .”
    â€œSo she could have hired it done. Or maybe Tom had gambling debts. Or, I don’t know, a secret gay lover. Come on, don’t you ever watch Law & Order ?”
    Marva sipped at the wine and said nothing.
    â€œListen, I overheard the detectives talking with the, you know, crime scene guys. All that blood?”
    Marva shuddered. “Yeah?”
    â€œThey think it’s animal blood. They did some sort of test or something. Plus there