Confidence Girl: The Letty Dobesh Chronicles Read Online Free PDF Page A

break in.”
    “ You want to leave right now?”
    “ This second.”
    Daphne moved the pan to a cold burner and turned off the gas. They walked back down the hall, past a wall adorned with family and individual portraits and a collage of photographs—grinning babies and toddlers.
    In the foyer, Daphne plucked a set of keys from a ceramic bowl beside a coat rack and opened the front door. The yard brilliant with strands of light that passed through the trees and struck the lawn in splashes of green.
    Ten steps from the silver Beamer, Letty grabbed Daphne ’s arm and spun her around with a hard jerk.
    “ Ouch.”
    “ Back inside.”
    “ Why?”
    “ There’s a car parked halfway up your driveway behind the rhododendron.”
    They went back up the steps.
    “You have the house key?” Letty asked.
    Crossed the porch, Daphne struggling with the keys as they arrived at the door, finally sliding the right one into the deadbolt. Back into the house and Daphne shut the wide oak door after them, relocked the deadbolt, the doorknob, the chain.
    “I should check the back door,” Daphne said.
    “ It doesn’t matter. He has a key and Chase left a window open. You have a gun in the house?”
    Daphne nodded.
    “Show me.”
    Daphne ran up the staircase, Letty kicking off her heels as she followed. By the top of the stairs, her pulse had become a thumping in her temples—exertion and panic. They turned down a hallway, passed an office, a bright-white studio filled with sunlight and tedious acrylic paintings of mountain scenes, then two children ’s bedrooms that emanated the frozen perfection of unlived-in space. At the end of the hall, French doors opened into a master suite built in the shape of an octagon, the walls rising to a vaulted ceiling that was punctured with skylights. 
    Chirping crickets stopped them both. Daphne withdrew her iPhone from the pocket of her robe and forced a smile that managed to bleed through into her voice.
    “Hi, Honey… …no, it’s fine… …upstairs… …sure.” Daphne stepped into a walk-in closet, hit the lights. Letty lingered in the doorway, watched her reach through a wall of suits, emerging a moment later with a pump-action shotgun.
    She mouthed, “Loaded?”
    Daphne nodded. “Chase, it’s not in here. Want me to check downstairs?” Letty took the gun from Daphne. “All right,” Daphne said. “You two have fun.”
    Letty whispered, “Call Nine-one-one,” and while Daphne dialed, Letty flicked off the safety and racked a shell into the chamber. She peered around the corner, down the hall. The house stood silent. She moved out of the closet and into a lavish master bath the size of her apartment, the tile cool on her bare feet.
    Garden tub. Immense stone shower with a chrome fixture a foot in diameter. Long countertops cut from Italian granite.
    Letty opened the glass shower door and cranked the handle. Preheated water rained down. The glass steamed. She returned to the bedroom, shutting the door behind her, found Daphne standing just inside the closet.
    “ Why’d you run the shower?” she whispered.
    “ Are the police coming?”
    “ Yes.”
    Letty killed the lights. “Go crouch down in the corner behind those dresses and turn your phone off.” As Daphne retreated into the darkness, Letty pulled the door closed and padded out into the hall, making her way between the easels in the studio to the big windows that overlooked the front yard.
    The car in the driveway hadn ’t moved. A black 4Runner. Empty.
    She walked out into the hall, straining to pick out the whine of approaching sirens.
    Had the central heat been running, it would’ve completely escaped her notice, and even in the perfect silence she still nearly missed it—just around the corner and several feet down, the faintest groan of hardwood fibers bowing under the weight of a footstep.
    Letty backpedaled into the studio and stepped behind the open door.
    Through the crack, she eyed the hall.
    Arnold appeared