Five's A Crowd Read Online Free PDF Page B

crowded.”
    “No, you didn’t mention it,” Taylor responded, something very much like disappointment in her tone. “Is he staying long?”
    “All summer,” Holden told her. “I’m baby-sitting while his daddy revisits his past. You ever hear of Peter LeGrand?”
    Taylor’s eyebrows climbed almost comically on her forehead. “The rock star? Well, that’s one secret you’ve kept from the media, or at least from the legitimate papers. I don’t read the tabloids.” She peered over the railing once more. “Son of a gun. He does look sort of like Pistol Pete. Like he did a couple of decades ago, I mean. Shouldn’t we have told Thelma he was coming? I don’t think she’s made up any of the other beds.”
    “I think Woody could sleep in a bathtub and probably has,” Holden said, wincing as Woodstock LeGrand vaulted out of the car without opening the door, displaying a muscle shirt and a pair of psychedelic shorts with a hole just beneath the back pocket. “Where’s Tiff?” he then yelled, leaning over the railing.
    “Who’s Tiff?”
    “She’s flying in to Philly, then taking a limo! You know how Tiff likes to rough it,” Woody, cupping his hands at the sides of his mouth, responded in a near bellow.
    “A limo?” Holden repeated, shaking his head. Tiffany certainly had style. Sort of.
    “Who’s Tiff?”
    “If we’re lucky, she’ll be skyjacked, huh?” Woody offered amicably, if loudly, as he pulled his surfboard out of the back seat.
    “She’s coming alone, isn’t she? She shows up with a beach bum, and you’re all outta here!”
    “Who is Tiff!”
    Holden turned and looked at Taylor, who was looking decidedly mulish. “Huh?”
    “I asked, and will repeat for the benefit of the listening audience—which must be half of Ocean City, which you ought to be thinking about if you want to stay anonymous while you’re here— who is Tiff?”
    “My teenage stepsister. And Woody’s half sister. Before my mother’s time—wives two and three, Ithink. Mother and Peter lasted about six weeks, but Woody and Tiffany and I, well, I think we’ve bonded in some strange way. Don’t frown,” he told her. “I’ll draw you a family tree.”
    “Better have a lot of branches,” she quipped, then frowned. “If Woody down there is the older one, how old is this Tiff person? And is she staying here all summer, too? And before you answer—will that be everybody? Or am I not going to be able to tell all the players without a scorecard?”
    Holden grinned. “Thought we’d be all alone, did you? Just you and me and this great big condo. I’m flattered. And as disappointed as you, to tell the truth. It could have been fun.”
    “Go to hell, Holden Masters,” Taylor retorted hotly, then stomped back into the living room, leaving him alone to lean against the railing, an absurdly pleased smile on his face.
    Maybe he wouldn’t have to kill Sid after all….
    W OODSTOCK L E G RAND WAS a neat kid, kid being the operative word. Neat was definitely not one of his virtues. Within two hours of his arrival, the condo showed signs of his habitation from kitchen to foyer.
    Taylor pushed the boy’s surfboard closer to the wall as she headed for the stairs, snagged a muscle shirt from the railing on the between floor where the two smaller bedrooms were located, picked up a sneaker on the way to the upper living room andtripped over a second sneaker as she entered the kitchen—to see Woody perched, barefoot, on the tiled countertop, telling Thelma she should rename her parakeet Louise.
    “Get him out of here, would you?” Thelma pleaded, a cigarette clamped between her teeth, the rising smoke forcing her to keep one eye closed—a look that had already put Taylor in mind of Popeye on acid, not that she’d dare to say any such thing to the housekeeper. “They oughta fence in all of California, or so my Sam always said. Not to keep other people out, but to keep the Californians in. Nuts—all of them!”
    “And