Cain Read Online Free PDF Page A

out the back door through the
kitchen. She looked at the caller ID then at the man. She could
barely focus on either.
    “ It’s my mom.” Julie
looked at the ID again. “I can’t do it. I won’t do what they want.
It’s sick. Not anymore and not ever again will I answer to them.”
She broke the phone in half and took out the battery. But before
she could do much more than that, she staggered again and fell to
the ground. She wasn’t sure what happened after that. The man,
Rodney he’d told her at one point, took the broken pieces from her
and pulled her into his box.
    “ Come here and sit with
me, kid. I’ll tell you how to become nothing.”
    Julie remembered not feeling any fear
of the older man. She’d felt safe and secure for the first time in
two weeks. Since her father had died. And now, ten years later, she
was alone again.
    Julie woke sometime later and realized
she wasn’t alone in the room. Before she could call out, she
smelled the familiar perfume.
    “ I’m so sorry about
Rodney, Molly. He was...he was my best friend. I’m so
sorry.”
    “ Thank you. He loved you
very much too. He was so much better with you around to care for.
Though I’m not sure who cared for whom. I feel like you gave him
back to me. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
    Julie nodded. Tears hot and fresh
trailed down her cheeks. “Rodney said you were his one true love.
He often told me he wished he could have done better by you. I have
some of his things. Nothing that he wouldn’t want you to have, I
assure you. We each...we kept things for each other. Just in case
something happened to either of us,” Julie told Molly.
    Molly got up and walked over to some of
the flowers in the window shelf. She was fingering a small flower
when she spoke again.
    “ I know who you are and
what you are. He said, Rodney said that someday you’d have to
remember that too. He said thet you’d be a better woman than the
child you were.”
    Julie felt the room closing in again.
If Molly knew, then who else knew? And most importantly, how had
Rodney found out?
    “ What do you want? I
assure you, I have no money. Since I left, all I had is long gone.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Julie regretted them. Molly
turned and looked at her. Julie could see that she had hurt her.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have...I’m so very sorry.”
    Molly sat back down and pulled her
purse into her lap. She got up and handed an envelope to Julie. She
didn’t say anything for a few minutes then looked at Julie in the
eye. “Rodney wanted you to have that. He brought it to me about a
month ago. He asked me not to look at it, but he did give me a file
on you. Did he ever tell you what he did before he decided to go
into the streets?”
    “ Yes. He said he was a
cop. He told me that he’d killed someone and though it was ruled
justified, it wasn’t to him. He said it was a small boy. That he’d
pulled a gun on Rodney and fired. Rodney returned fire before he
saw who it was. He said the little boy was eight.”
    Molly wiped at her tears. “Yes. He’d be
your age about now. Rodney was a good man. He just couldn’t forgive
himself.” She walked to the door, but stopped and turned back to
Julie. “The funeral is day after tomorrow. Dr. Waite said you could
go, that he would release you by then. It’s a graveside, Glenview
Cemetery at one o’clock.”
    The door closed quietly behind her.
Julie rolled to her side, buried her face in the pillow, and sobbed
for her friend and mentor. Holding the envelope close to her chest,
Julie fell into a fitful sleep.

~CHAPTER FIVE~
     
    Cain watched his mother preen. He
hadn’t ever used that word before, but knew without a doubt that
was exactly what she was doing. He’d been in her room for nearly
twenty minutes now waiting to take her to her small apartment. He
didn’t tell her he’d bought Devin and Ronnie’s house. He looked at
his watch again. Just as he was about to say something to her