Head Games Read Online Free PDF Page A

the morning, and her dog was throwing himself against the back door and howling. Molly had to take care of it.
    In a minute.
    â€œHe lyin’ to me, Molly?” Dee demanded, shaking the teenager like a rat in his meaty grasp. “’Cause I already told him what’d happen, he was. And bein’ you be gettin’ those threatening notes and all, I thought I might jus’ be sure.”
    As achy and tired and overwhelmed as she already was, Molly damn near sat right down on the floor and cried.
    He was sixteen. Beanpole tall, waiting to fill out. Blessed with the face of a poet and the grace of an angel. Molly took in thick, curling strawberry blond hair, a soft auburn goatee on a young, fey, triangular face, huge, lashheavy hazel eyes that were now leaking tears of frustration. She saw the five-hundred-dollar leather-and-khaki duster, work pants, plaid flannel shirt, and, ruining the gangsta image, Bruno Maglis.
    He was the very last thing Molly needed tonight. She almost told Dee she’d never seen him before and shut the door.
    â€œWell?”
    Molly shook her head. “He isn’t lying, Dee. He does own it. Kind of. Stand up straight, Patrick. You have some explaining to do.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Aunt Molly,” he all but whispered in a marginally masculine voice.
    Molly sighed, stood aside, and wished hard for something stronger than aspirin. “Might as well come in. This is going to take some time.”
    â€œI bet,” Dee agreed, pushing the boy in the door ahead of him.
    â€œI didn’t mean it,” Patrick insisted in aggrieved tones.
    â€œOf course you didn’t mean it, Patrick,” Molly assured him drily. “It was an accident that you got a thousand miles from your house in Virginia, to walk off with the Rembrandt”—he’d just about been ready to step past her when she grabbed a corner of duster—“and the jade hung-ma.”
    â€œThe hung what?” Patrick echoed innocently.
    â€œThe jade what?” Dee echoed much more darkly one step behind.
    Molly didn’t take her eyes off her nephew. “Believe it or not, I do notice those things, Patrick. The small carving on the third shelf of the Queen Anne cabinet in the dining room—the deep blue one that looks
like it’s part horse, part dragon? It’s missing. It was also a good choice. It’s quite rare.”
    Tears welled all over again and he gulped. “I needed to get away. I didn’t think you’d care.”
    She didn’t. That was the worst part. No, the worst part was having her only brother’s older son on her doorstep four weeks before Christmas when the only thing she possessed less of than yule cheer was Christian charity. Especially toward her family.
    â€œYou’ve been getting threats, Aunt Molly?” the boy asked as she closed the door behind them. “Maybe I could stay and help … uh, protect you, okay?”
    â€œYou get in the kitchen and sit down,” she commanded. “As soon as you hand over the hung-ma.”
    Magnum was going to wake up the baby at the end of the block. Pointing to her nephew, Molly addressed her friend the cop. “Don’t let him out of your sight. I’ll be right back.”
    â€œBut Aunt Molly—”
    But Aunt Molly was already stalking through the kitchen, where she could just make out Magnum’s massive head outside the door.
    He had something. Something he dropped every time he started barking, and then picked up again, like a furry bellboy with room service.
    Something white.
    That shouldn’t have given Molly the creeps. Tonight, it did. It looked like a flower box, the kind long-stemmed roses come in.
    Probably something that had been tossed over the fence from the neighboring streets. Molly’s yard sided along Euclid, where an eclectic crowd frequented the trendy shops and restaurants tucked all along the Central West End. Since she’d moved