Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

recovered his composure. He rinsed the coffee funnel, making sure he kept his back elaborately turned. “What’d she do? Get in a brawl at a fern bar?”
    “Keil. Libby. There’s another piece of it.” I paused, wondering if I really had to tell them, and concluding it wasn’t right to keep it back. For all I knew, it was in the morning paper. “Something really, really bad has happened to Sadie Swedlow.”
    Fear, primitive, childish fear, the kind of fear you can only feel when you’re a kid and things go out of control, filled Libby’s eyes, contorted her face. “How bad?”
    “Real bad, honey. She died last night.”
    Deep, wracking sobs erupted from her small body—not the angry, confused ones of a few moments ago. This was real sadness. I held out my arms to her and took a step forward, but she turned and ran. I realized I was crying myself. The back door slammed and I looked around, but Keil had left. I hadn’t heard him move. I stood in the middle of the kitchen feeling miserable.
    I hadn’t been around kids much. I was shocked at how much of Libby’s sadness I had picked up, and I thought I could feel Keil’s, too. It was as if I’d gone suddenly psychic, lost the adult defenses it had taken me a lifetime to build. I took deep breaths, trying to figure out what was happening.
    Were they so upset because they had loved Sadie? She hadn’t been around long, but I was sure they’d been spending weekends, at least, with her and Don. There might have been time to build a rapport.
    Or had they caught on that Sadie’s death and their mother’s being in jail were connected? Had it hit them in that millisecond that that had to be what their mom had been arrested for, and if so, how had they put it together so fast? Had they heard their mother threaten her? Or was it intuition?
    In just a few minutes around these small beings, I was starting to understand that they lived in a different place from the one adults lived in, that they had transmitters and receivers that could get past normal barriers of communication. I don’t mean I’d lived such an isolated life I’d never seen a kid close up—far from it. But I hadn’t been around them much under extreme stress, and I felt I’d just seen something naked and important. I thought that if I could tune in to where they were, I might learn something.
    The next question, of course, was what to do next. Try to comfort Libby, probably, though I didn’t think I’d get far. The doorbell rang as I started for the stairs.
    “Oh.” The caller was a gold-colored girl with black hair, smaller than Libby, maybe a little younger. Looking confused, she turned briefly around as a silver-painted compact drove away.
    “It’s okay. I’m Rebecca, the baby-sitter. Did you come to see Libby?”
    She nodded, looking very scared.
    “Come in.”
    She did, but obviously because a grown-up was telling her to, not because she wanted to. It was clear she wanted to run for her life. Did I look weird?
    It came to me that I hadn’t combed my hair. I probably had dreadlocks. I was going to have to fake being motherly—it certainly didn’t come natural. “What’s your name, angel? Would you like to sit down?”
    “Esperanza.” She made no move to sit.
    “What a beautiful name. It’s Spanish, isn’t it?”
    She looked anxiously at the stairs. “Honey, I’m not sure Libby’s going to be able to play this morning—let me just ask her, shall I?”
    She looked at me oddly. I thought she was wondering why I didn’t just send her up—she could ask Libby herself. I didn’t because I was afraid Libby in her current state would scare her even worse. The girl would be sure I was holding Libby captive and now had Esperanza to torture as well. Damn! If only I could get to a comb maybe she wouldn’t be so nervous.
    I raced up the stairs, not able to get away fast enough, and found Libby crying her heart out. “Honey, Esperanza’s here.”
    No answer, just sobs.
    “Shall I