Dead Lift Read Online Free PDF Page B

meal, Jeannie sat across from us in a booth and the three of us ate enough fajitas and enchiladas to serve a party of six. In the company of my two most favorite people—well, grown-up people—I tried to relax and enjoy the moment, but couldn’t completely do it. Annette was away. My relationship with Richard was strained again. Vince was wonderful, but he communicated in undertones I couldn’t figure out. And Jeannie had come all the way from Cleveland to celebrate my impending birthday and I thanked her by hauling her around to do job stuff.
    “The waitress is too slow,” she said. “I’m going to the bar for another margarita. Want anything?”
    Vince’s beer was nearly full and I’d hardly put a dent in my own margarita. I shook my head and she slid from the booth, giving us a too-close view of her cleavage as she stood. Maybe just too close for me.
    I drummed my nails on the table, playing with new clicking noises I was never able to make before. Vince took my hand.
    “These are new.”
    I extended my fingers and evaluated them. “Like wearing a thimble on every one. Dialing’s impossible and buttons are the devil.”
    He laughed. “What were you thinking?”
    “
Me
?” I nodded toward the bar. “I fell asleep in the salon’s shiatsu chair and Miss Diva had this done before I woke up.”
    He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it, smiling to himself. Then he chuckled.
    “What?”
    “There’s more coming.”
    “More what?”
    “Spa treatment…things.”
    “No there aren’t.”
    “Yes there are. She told me.”
    “Told you when?”
    “At the jail, when we were waiting for you.”
    I drummed the fakes again. They were really good for that.
    “I won’t go.”
    Vince took a swig of beer. “I’m staying out of it.”
    Then he set his glass down and pulled me into the tight space around him that smelled like nautical cologne and sawdust, which I loved. “Got a question for you. How about, before kindergarten starts, we take Annette on a trip? Nothing huge. Maybe the Alamo. Or Sea World.”
    I glanced at the bar, wishing I were wired so Jeannie could tell me through an earpiece what to say. But she was talking to a man of her own, too busy flirting to throw me a lifeline.
    Connecting with Vince was still hard and I often associated it with the awkwardness of teen dating. Much as I liked him, I couldn’t figure us out. “I…Here’s the thing—”
    He raised his free hand in a don’t-get-me-wrong gesture. “I meant, only if you’re comfortable. Maybe I shouldn’t have—”
    “It’s fine.” I nestled in closer and took his hand. His eyes were such a deep green that they almost looked brown under the dim lights. And they bored into mine so intently it was clear we were having two conversations. More undertones. “I’m glad you brought it up.”
    He waited for me to go on, stroking the top of my hand so gently with his thumb that I barely felt his touch—yet only felt his touch—both at the same time.
    “I’m terrified of failing her,” I said. “We hardly know each other. I want her love and don’t know how to get it.”
    “That’ll come,” he said. “It gets better all the time. You said so yourself.”
    “But in her mind, I’m still the one who separated her from her parents. It’s incredible she doesn’t resent me. I couldn’t live with myself if she started to believe anyone else comes before her.”
    He nodded. “I think you’re too hard on yourself. But I understand where you’re coming from.”
    “For the record,” I said, “If things were more stable, I’d go on that trip. I’d go on lots of trips with you.”
    He gave me a delicate and lingering kiss. “Then when they are, we will.”

Chapter Six
    “I said I never met him, not that I never heard of him.” In the city jail, Claire had worn her street clothes but, at County, they’d been traded for a standard-issue orange jumpsuit with a loose cut that hid every curve on her slender frame.
    “Did