Deadly Stakes Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Her name’s Ms. Wurth.”
    “Oh,” James said, nodding. “That would be Maddy. She and Bethany and your mother were always great pals. Called themselves the Three Musketeers.”
    A.J. glanced at his watch. “Look,” he said, “I’ve got to clock in.”
    “Sure,” James said. “Go ahead. It might be best if you didn’t mention me to your mother—at least not yet. But about that bike. Shouldn’t you be thinking about getting yourself something with four wheels? Do you even have a license?”
    “I’m taking driver’s ed, but Mom and I can’t afford a car—not the car itself or the insurance,” A.J. said bluntly. “I’m trying to save money for college.”
    “There you go, then,” James said, blowing a cloud of smoke skyward. “Suit yourself, but don’t work too hard.”
    A.J. hurried into the store. He made it to the time clock on time, but just barely. He was working on clearing out the back-to-school display and restocking the shelves with Halloween merchandise when Madeline stopped by to check on him.
    “Who was that you were talking to outside?” Madeline Wurth asked. “I noticed that guy hanging around. I was about to tell him to move along when you turned up.”
    A.J. flushed. Anything he told Madeline would go straight to his mother. “Just a guy who was lost,” A.J. mumbled. “He got Seventh Street confused with Seventh Avenue. I told him he needed to be on the other side of Central.”
    “Easy mistake to make,” Madeline said.
    Summoned by a page from the pharmacy, Madeline Wurth hurried away, leaving A.J. restocking the shelves and struggling with his conscience. Yes, he had lied to Madeline; with his mother, it wouldn’t exactly be lying. He was just leaving something out—something she probably didn’t want to know about in the first place. Besides, A.J. reasoned, if there were almost sixteen years between visits, it didn’t seem likely that James Sanders would be showing up again anytime soon.
    But that assessment was wrong. A.J.’s father had turned up again the very next week. A.J. came home from work on the day of his birthday, expecting that he and his mother would go out to have pizza, just the two of them. That was how they usually did it. As he rode his bike into the carport, he wondered about the strange car—a silver Camry—parked in the driveway behind his mother’s Passat. On the window of the passenger side was one of those AS IS, NO WARRANTY stickers. Even before he opened the front door and smelled the cigarette smoke, he could hear the sound of raised voices. Quietly, he opened the door and slipped into the entryway, staying just out of sight of the living room, where his mother and James Sanders were arguing.
    “After doing nothing for all this time, you’ve got no right to do this now,” Sylvia declared hotly.
    “Look,” James was saying, sounding conciliatory. “That’s what I’m trying to do here—make up for lost time.”
    “You think that will make up for sixteen years of being an absenteefather? You don’t raise a finger in all that time, but now you think you can walk in here and give him a car for his birthday? Just like that?”
    “He’s a good kid. He gets good grades. He works hard. He deserves to have a car.”
    “I don’t know how you know about his grades or where he works, but A.J. and I have already discussed the car situation. Between insurance and gas, it would be more than we can afford.”
    “That’s what this is for,” James said.
    A.J. heard the sound of something—an envelope, maybe—landing on the coffee table.
    “What’s this?” Sylvia asked.
    “The title’s in there, and so is the bill of sale,” James answered. “It’s all in order. I called an insurance guy and found out how much it’ll cost to insure the Camry with an inexperienced driver. There’s enough coin of the realm in there to pay the insurance costs for the next three years, as well as a hundred dollars a month for gas money.”
    “You