Dawn Autumn Read Online Free PDF Page A

feel wretched. The poor girl probably thought she was going crazy. Maybe he could make up a story about a broken gas line with hallucinogenic side effects. She’d probably be relieved.
    Mentally embellishing his story, he wandered into her apartment for one last look around and spied the open paper on the counter. Noticing the circled advertisements, he leaned over for a closer look. His brows shot up in surprise when he saw the dental hygienist and stripper adds. She hadn’t been to college, much less dental school, and he couldn’t envision her as a stripper. Well, he could , but not in a public performance.
    Shaking his head to clear it, he twirled his glasses by the earpiece and stared at her closed door, almost hoping she’d poke her head out. She needed a better job. He needed to keep her from debasing herself to keep a roof over her head. Maybe he had a solution that would solve both their problems.
    * * * *
    “A gas leak?” Jay stared at Fred over her coffee cup, willing away the dull ache in her head. The painkiller hadn’t kicked in yet. At least the caffeine would shake away some of the bleariness of a too early wake up call.
    Fred had knocked on her door at 6:30 am...on her day off. That he came bearing breakfast was the only thing that saved him from instant annihilation. Armed with a tray full of bacon, eggs, and cinnamon rolls fresh from the corner diner, he’d sidled past her guard and coaxed her to the counter. Now he sat across from her with his baseball cap on backwards, his tinted glasses smudged and a paint smear down the left side of his face, trying to cheer her up.
    “I didn’t know you weren’t a morning person,” he said apologetically as he downed his third egg.
    Jay grunted and picked up a cinnamon roll. She’d better start. At the rate he was eating, there’d be nothing left. Where did he put it all? He ought to weigh three hundred pounds if he ate like this every day. “I loathe mornings,” she said in her pre-caffeine growl, her glower communicating just how much she hated morning people, too. “I don’t believe there was a gas leak, either.” Stubborn in her grouchiness, she stared him down.
    He considered her calmly over his third cinnamon roll. “What do you think happened?”
    Since she’d had plenty of time to think about that during the long night while she sat in bed, cuddling her baseball bat and staring balefully at her locked bedroom door, she said flatly, “I got a good whiff of the stuff that had soaked into my socks and the back of my clothes. It wasn’t cleaner. Cleaners smell soapy and over perfumed—that stuff smelled like ....” She narrowed her eyes at him. “It smelled like the chemicals you seem to bathe in.” So it was rude—she didn’t care. Somebody was lying to her, and she didn’t appreciate it.
    Clearly affronted, he sat back. “I smell? And bathroom cleaners don’t always smell good.”
    Slowly she shook her head. “It’s not a bathroom cleaner. You smell like...moldy leaves, sulfur and gasoline. It makes me want to sneeze, only it’s not as strong as the stuff on my socks last night.”
    He stared at her, seemingly caught between indignation, anger, and amusement.
    Let him. He deserved it for that gas leak story. “I ran out of my apartment because I saw something leaving it. Something’s going on around here, and I think you know what it is.” The huge streak on his glasses was driving her crazy. Little things did that in the morning. Combined with her lack of sleep, that tiny little provocation might just send her over the edge.
    “You’re clearly in need of more sleep,” he said with an edge of temper to his voice. He started to clean up. “I’ll see you later, after you’ve had a chance to nap.”
    Before he could get up, Jay reached out and snatched his glasses from his face.
    Instantly, he closed his eyes. “Give those back, Jay.” He was calm, but far from happy.
    Ignoring the command in his tone, she leisurely