Killer Image (An Allison Campbell Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page B

too frail to support his weight. 
    “It’s them spics across the street, Ally,” her father said, as though continuing a conversation he’d had with her just yesterday instead of years ago. “They’re the ones taking our stones. Every morning I notice some missing. They’re storing ’em up to make their own rock garden. Bit by bit, I tell you.” He shook his head. “When them foreigners move into a neighborhood, it goes downhill fast.”
    He raised a fist for emphasis, but the energy needed to project his anger at this bit of fantasy was too much, and he sank back against the cushion and closed his eyes.
    Allison was at a loss for words. How do you respond to a man whose last real words to you were, “Get your fat, lazy ass out there and make your own damn living”? Her mind tug-o-warred between revulsion and pity.
    Shaken, she let her eyes travel from her father to her mother, who sat on the old Queen Anne chair next to him. Allison knelt beside her. She took her mother’s hand in her own, ran her fingers across skin that felt dry and papery, and squeezed gently. Her mother didn’t squeeze back.
    “Was this what you expected?” Faye said.
    “I didn’t know what to expect.”
    “That’s because you don’t see it every day like I do.”
    “Yes, Faye, I know. And you take every opportunity to remind me what an awful daughter I am.”
    Faye looked away. “I didn’t mean that, Allison.”
    “Yes, you did.” Unwilling to rehash old hurts, Allison changed the topic. “Did she go to the hospital?”
    “No. The medics were here. Physically, she’s not in any immediate danger.”
    Allison nodded, unable to escape the feeling she was moving through a dream. For most of her childhood, her mother had been like a ghost, lurking upstairs in the shadows. Even before the Alzheimer’s, her mother suffered debilitating migraines that kept her in bed for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. Allison’s memories of her younger years were a patchwork quilt of bright spots, marked by her mother’s warmth and laughter, and large, dark squares shaded by sickness and her father’s poor attempts to parent Allison and her two sisters. And now even the bright spots were dulled by this awful disease that stole the few memories the sisters shared.
    “They want to bring in social services,” Faye said. “The medics say she’s malnourished.”
    Allison stood up and looked again at her mother. The blanket had slipped from her shoulders, and Allison saw the tips of her mother’s collar bones peaking from beneath her sweater. Her eyes were sunken, her cheeks hollow. Her hair, once the color of fresh straw, lay matted in gray strands around her face.
    Allison turned back to Faye. Her older sister, once the family beauty, wore the Purple Heart of martyrdom in the frown lines around her mouth and the burdened curvature of her spine.
    “What happened today?”
    “I left Mom with Daddy when I ran to the store. Just for a half hour, that was all. He dozed off, and she left.”
    “I was awake!” Her father shouted. “I didn’t hear the door. I wasn’t wearing my hearing aid.”
    Faye looked at him sharply. “You said you were asleep.”
    “I was awake!”
    Allison turned to Faye. “Can I talk to you in the kitchen?”
    Faye looked at her sideways. “Why?”
    Allison tipped her head in the direction of their father.
    In the kitchen and safely out of earshot, Allison said, “We’ve known for a while that dad’s showing signs of dementia, and Mom needs to be watched. I think it’s time to hire a nurse. Someone to help you out.”
    Faye’s gaze hardened. “It’s a waste of money we may need later.”
    “We have to do something.”
    “We? Since when is it ‘we,’ Allison?”
    “It’s always been ‘we,’ Faye. I’m still here, aren’t I? Despite everything.”
    “Like Katie, you’re there in a way that’s convenient for you.”
    Allison’s younger sister Katie had married an enlisted man when she was