Hope to Die Read Online Free PDF

ledge and down into the yard. A door creaked open. A big male Rottweiler came bounding out toward him.
    Sunday stopped and stayed perfectly still, his eyes watching the dark space beyond the door as the dog growled low and circled him, taking his wind. When the dog barked, the door opened wider, and Sunday crossed to the shack. He climbed the stoop, passing a chain saw and a gas can, and went inside.
    “That necessary every time?” Sunday asked the muscular bald guy crossing the dim space to a crude kitchen. His name was Claude Harrow.
    “Every time,” Harrow replied. “Puts a man’s mind at ease, ’specially now that you and I done crossed a dark line together.”
    The dog came in behind him. Sunday shut the door and stood there until his eyes adjusted and he could make out the Formica table, lawn chairs, busted couch, and woodstove in the corner. The walls were bare except for a large Confederate flag and a framed eight-by-ten photograph of Adolf Hitler in full salute. The dog went to the stove and lay down by the stove, head up, watching Sunday.
    “Looked like it all went according to plan,” Sunday said, smelling bleach and seeing a washtub close to him on the floor. Two butcher knives and a pair of tin snips were soaking in three inches of chlorine and water.
    “Well, what’d you expect? Amateur hour?” Harrow replied, and he turned to him, revealing a thin, nasty scar on his right cheek and a tattoo of a flaming sword on the side of his neck.
    Sunday noticed a mirror on the table and saw the traces of white lines on it. He frowned. “Thought we agreed no tweaking during the game.”
    “We said during, not after,” Harrow replied. “Don’t worry. It’s just a pick-me-up. I been up all night and had the jitters by the time I got back here.”
    Sunday debated whether to press the point, decided not to, and held out the gym bag, saying, “Balance on the first is there, plus a down payment on number two.”
    Harrow motioned for him to put it on the table, asked, “How soon?”
    “Tonight. The older boy.”
    Sunday could tell Harrow didn’t like that.
    “That kind of short notice and tight turnaround is gonna cost you,” Harrow said.
    “How much?”
    “To pull it off clean like that? Hundred K more on the back end.”
    Sunday didn’t like renegotiations. “Quite a jump in pay.”
    “Hell of a risk I’m taking. Cops involved, right?”
    “I think you’d do it even if I weren’t paying you a small fortune,” Sunday said, setting the bag down.
    “I might,” Harrow agreed, smiling for the first time. “Cops aside, I do enjoy and appreciate the cleaning work.”
    “You’ll let me know when it’s done?”
    “Man’s gotta get paid, don’t he? You want coffee?”
    “Sorry, I have to catch a plane, be in St. Louis by five, no ifs, ands, or buts,” Sunday said, heading toward the door.
    “And if you aren’t?”
    “Bad stuff happens.”

CHAPTER
9
     
    JOHN SAMPSON ARRIVED AS I watched the body bag being brought up out of the hole.
    Built like a power forward in the NBA, he looked as weak as a kitten when he came to me with tears welling in his eyes. John and I have been brothers in all but genetics since we were ten years old. When the big man threw his arms around me, it was everything I could do not to dissolve right then and there.
    “Jesus Christ, Alex,” Sampson said hoarsely. “I came as soon as I heard. Is it true? Is it—”
    “I think so, but I don’t know for certain, and I won’t until tomorrow at least—and that may be the worst part,” I said in a dull voice as they put the body bag on a stretcher and wheeled it over to the medical examiner’s van.
    I kept trying to think of the body in the bag as being someone other than Bree. But Mulch, he—
    “You want me to take you home?” Sampson asked.
    “No,” I said. “Home’s not a good place for me. Mulch watches me there, enjoys my suffering, and I won’t contribute to his enjoyment anymore. I just need to go for