Booked to Die Read Online Free PDF

again, Jackie. I wish I could accommodate you, I really do. You could show me how you beat up women and murder dogs. Or murder bums on the street.”
    “Is that what this is about? Are you still trying to stick me with that?”
    “I’m going to stick you with it, pal. You watch me.”
    “Why don’t you fight me, Janeway? Just pick the place and time.”
    “I wish I could. We don’t do things that way.”
    “That don’t surprise me. Now if you’re all through, I’m going in.”
    I had been working my way slowly around, putting more distance between Newton and the woman. Now I put an arm out and moved her completely aside.
    ‘Barbara,“ I said. ”Why don’t you come on with us?“
    “All right.”
    “I wouldn’t do that,” Jackie Newton said.
    “You wouldn’t do anything unless it was stupid or mean,” I said. I got my hand on her shoulder and guided her away from the house. We got her to the car and inside, and there she broke down in a fit of sobbing. Her whole body trembled. I took off my coat and covered her shoulders, but it was a long time before she was ready to tell us about it.
    We let Nasses off in Jeffco and were coming down Sixth Avenue toward Denver when I started to get her story. Hennessey was driving and Barbara was huddled against the shotgun door. I was in the back, leaning over the seat. I started with the little things. Her last name was Crowell. She lived in a Capitol Hill walk-up near Eleventh and Pearl. She worked for one of the companies that did business with Jackie Newton. Yesterday was the first time she had seen him… socially. She was flattered that he had asked her: he was rich and some people found him attractive. No one had warned her what he was really like.
    It had happened pretty much as I had figured. Jackie’s idea of a date was apparent soon after they arrived at his house. He had a waterbed the size of a football field, with a hot tub, mirrors, the whole nine yards. That hadn’t bothered her much: she wasn’t entirely indisposed to going down with a guy the first time out, if she liked him. If a guy knew how to treat a girl, what was the harm in it? But then the dog ate the steaks and Jackie went crazy. You wouldn’t believe how strong he was. That was a big dog, and he’d pulled it up over that limb like it weighed nothing. She had tried to stop him: she hated cruelty, she just couldn’t stand there and watch that animal kick its life out. She had tried to cut the rope and Jackie slugged her. He was strong, all right, no mistake about it. With one punch he knocked her senseless.
    The next fifteen hours was a nightmare. When she opened her eyes she was in the car. They were on the interstate heading east out of Denver. He drove the same way he did everything, always one inch from the brink of insanity. He kept his foot jammed on the floorboards—Jesus, you couldn’t imagine a car could go that fast. Later he’d gone off the freeway into a narrow country road. Once they’d stopped in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t seem to want to go into that, but I had started to taste blood and there was no way I was going to let her drop it.
    “Barbara,” I said softly. “Did he rape you?”
    She shook her head.
    “Because if he did, you know, we can give him a lot of grief.”
    “I didn’t struggle.”
    “You don’t have to struggle for it to be rape.”
    She took a deep shivery breath. I gave her a handkerchief and she dabbed her eyes.
    “Barbara,” I said.
    “I just want to forget about it.”
    “I can see that you do, and I understand that. But if you don’t do something he’ll just do it again.”
    “Not to me.”
    We didn’t say anything more for a minute. Hennessey drove smoothly into the city, turning north on Santa Fe. From there we could go easily to her place or to Denver General.
    “We need to go to the hospital,” I said. “Get you examined, get a doctor involved. You can make up your mind what to do later, but we need to get this done