Intent to Kill Read Online Free PDF

living, but the commercial development of his own line of skin care and antiaging products was what made it possible for him to own the PawSox. The word on the financial street was that he and his partners were on the verge of selling their company to a major cosmetics manufacturer for nine figures.
    For Ryan, letting down a man like Garrisen had been no small matter, as their relationship ran deeper than baseball. Not only was Garrisen married to the assistant attorney general who was overseeing Chelsea’s vehicular homicide case, but it was Garrisen, in his role as chairman of the Board of Trustees of Brookline Academy, who had gotten Chelsea her teaching job. When she died, he established a scholarship with his own money to make it possible for Ainsley to attend school there.
    “How’s that beautiful Ainsley doing?” asked Garrisen. Kindergarten was always safe ground, a way to avoid talking about topics that were no longer happy. Like everyone else, Garrisen had long ago stopped asking Ryan if he was ever going back to baseball.
    “She’s great,” said Ryan. “Really great.”
    “Good to hear,” Garrisen said.
    The polite thing would have been for Ryan to ask him about Mrs. Garrisen, but since her office’s investigation into Chelsea’s accident had gone absolutely nowhere in three years, it seemed awkward to bring her into the conversation on the anniversary of Chelsea’s death. Ryan didn’t go there, which created an uncomfortable moment of silence.
    “Well, it was good to see you again,” said Ryan.
    “Likewise,” Garrisen said as he patted Ryan on the shoulder. “And don’t be a stranger. Call me sometime; let me know how you’re doing.”
    It was one of those things that old friends always said to Ryan, partly out of concern, but mainly because they didn’t know what else to say.
    “I will,” said Ryan, knowing that he never would.
    As Garrisen headed toward the school’s administrative offices, Ryan continued across campus to the playground, where Ainsley was in aftercare. For most of the academic year, pickup would be in the gymnasium or library, but this was one of those beautiful September days in New England that could almost make a southerner forget about the coming winter, when kids got to play beneath a cloudless blue sky until a parent or nanny came to get them. Ryan was down on one knee, gathering Anisley’s lunch box and backpack from the bottom cubby, when Ainsley sneaked up from behind and jumped on his back.
    “Guess who!” she said, covering his eyes with her little hands.
    “Uh, Beyoncé Knowles.”
    “No!”
    “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
    “Daddy!”
    He pulled her up and over his shoulders and turned her upside down until she giggled, her pigtails reaching for the ground.
    “Oh, it’s you ,” he said.
    They said good-bye to the TA and held hands while walking to the parking lot. The school uniform for kindergarten girls was a plaid skirt, navy-blue knee socks, and a blue oxford-cloth shirt, but usually Ainsley was in complete violation of the dress code at day’s end, her shirttails hanging out, her socks down to her ankles, and her loafers scuffed from running and tussling with the boys on the playground. Ainsley loved school, and like her daddy, recess was her favorite subject, but Ryan always had to drag the details out of her.
    “How was your day, sweetie?”
    “Good.”
    “Did you have fun?”
    “Yes.”
    “What did you do?”
    “Daddy, I’m hungry.”
    He shook her hand. “Hi, hungry, nice to meet you. I’m Ryan James.”
    Ainsley rolled her eyes. Two months ago she would have thought a joke like that was hilarious. She was growing up fast.
    He buckled her into the booster seat in the car and drove out of the parking lot. Normally, they turned left to go home. This time, they went right.
    “Wrong way, Daddy.”
    “We’re not going straight home today.”
    “Where we going?”
    “Pawtucket,” he said.
    “Why?”
    Somehow, the word cemetery