Dead Red Read Online Free PDF Page A

handed it to me as the ringing stopped—just reaching for it hurt my shoulder—and something else came back from last night. Before everything went all to hell, Ricky had handed me something.
    Jack and I looked at each other. I pressed the phone’s home button, and the screen lit up. “Fuck me.”
    Jack slid over to the edge of the futon. “What?”
    I handed Jack the phone, and he looked at what I had. “Fuck me hard.”
    “Boys,” my sister said. “We haven’t even said grace yet.”
    Jack reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell, and punched some buttons. He put his phone next to Ricky’s, studied them both for about ten seconds, and then turned them to me.
    There, once again, on Jack’s phone was the blurry picture of the girl with the great smile. On Ricky’s was an in-focus image of the same girl.

 
    Chapter 3
    “I FUCKED UP, RAY.”
    “What kinda fuckup?”
    “On the RicTor scale, about a nine-point-eight, man.”
    “That’s a pretty big fuckup, Ricky.”
    “I know it. But, lemme show you something. Then tell me you wouldn’ta done the same thing.”
    *   *   *
    “You two comparing cell phone sizes, now?”
    “Rachel,” I said. “Come here.” When she got to the side of my chair, I held the phones out for her. “Whatta you think? This the same person?”
    She looked at the pictures. “Could be. It’s hard to tell ’cause this one’s blurry, but that is the same smile. Again, hard to be sure, but in this one,” she held up Ricky’s phone, “she looks a bit older. Maybe it’s the hair?” She took a closer look. “This girl is pretty.”
    I studied the picture on Ricky’s phone. “Terminally.” I pressed the button to call back whoever had just called, and I was sent directly to an automated response telling me the caller was unavailable.
    “What the fuck are you doing with Ricky’s phone, Ray?” Jack asked.
    “He gave it to me.” I was remembering more now. “Said he needed to show me something.”
    Jack shot up off the couch as Rachel was handing me back the phones. His face told me he suddenly wished he hadn’t. On wobbly legs and through gritted teeth, he said, “What did he tell you, Ray? That he’d found the girl we were looking for? Were you and Ricky gonna go for the reward without me? That it?”
    There’s the old Jack , I thought. Paranoid as all shit .
    “I never got a chance to see the picture, Jack. Remember? All the bullets? The concussion? Ricky getting killed?”
    “Maybe all that happened after you got a look at the picture. Maybe that’s why you kept the phone.”
    “Right, Jack. It was all a plot against you.” I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “Somebody at the scene probably found the phone, assumed it was mine, and put it in the bag.” I flashed back to last night before I left the apartment. I didn’t remember taking my phone.
    “Tell me more about the missing girl,” I said to Jack.
    He got quiet for a few seconds and took a deep breath as Rachel stepped into my kitchen. “The family,” he said, calming down a bit now. “The Goldens. They’re offering fifty G’s for info that leads to her safe return home. Like I said, they all do that, the rich ones. I was weeding out the nut jobs, but the thought occurred to me that if Ricky or me found the chick…”
    “You and Ricky were going to split this?”
    “We were practically partners. I’m not gonna cut Ricky out of something like that. Especially if he came up with something big.”
    I gave him a look like I didn’t quite believe him, but I kept my mouth shut. Jack took the opportunity to sit back down on the futon.
    “Coffee, boys?” Rachel placed two steaming mugs on the coffee table and removed yesterday’s newspaper to make room for our breakfast. “I’ll be right back with some plates and napkins. Try and play nice.”
    Jack put the wet towel back up to his eyes and grinned. “She ain’t too bad when she’s not spraying people with