Kiss and Kill Read Online Free PDF

was found outside our lot the following day. Nearly out of gas, but otherwise undamaged. However, the driver is still missing.”
    A woman opened the door, stricken-faced. “Mr. Carmano, that file is gone!”
    â€œGone?”
    â€œI searched the whole filing cabinet, thinking somebody had misfiled it. But it’s just not there.”
    â€œThe burglary!” exclaimed the director. “Trouble comes in threes, gentlemen. A little over two weeks ago our office was entered during the night. The lock had been picked; we wouldn’t have known at all if the burglar had locked the door when he left.”
    â€œDid you report it to the police?”
    The director made a bitter face. “Between Talbot’s death and the driver’s disappearance, I’d had the police. Besides, I couldn’t see that anything had been taken. I never thought of examining the files.”
    Barney nodded. A man killed in Mexico; a man with a phony name and address. Three weeks ago the disappearing driver. Two weeks ago a stolen file. Eight days ago, Liz. Find the lost pieces of the jigsaw, fit them all together, and there would be Liz.
    Maybe.
    The director was saying to his secretary, “Here’s what you do, Millie. Those people on the tour wrote us before they came. In the correspondence file you’ll find their letters and copies of our replies. Type out their names and addresses and bring them to me.” When she had gone out, he scowled at Barney. “Anything else?”
    â€œYou say the driver has a wife. What’s her address?”
    The director consulted a pad beside his telephone. “Mrs. Elbert Kiddoo, Laurel Trailer Park.”
    Mrs. Elbert Kiddoo lived in a peeling house trailer with three towheaded children. The Texas sun had faded her like a chintz curtain in a window. She said in a tired monotone that her husband would come back. This was not the first time he had gone away. She had had plenty of practice waiting.
    There was an undertone of hysteria in her voice that hinted at more worry than she professed, but Barney couldn’t be sure.
    â€œThe police still pestering you?” he asked in a sympathetic tone.
    Anger flickered in her pale blue eyes. She moved her thin shoulders. “They came around.”
    â€œ We’ve got nothing against him.”
    â€œWhy should I care? Put him in jail. What good is he doing me this way?”
    Barney disliked following a police investigation. It always left people on their guard.
    â€œI understand your husband weighed three hundred pounds.”
    â€œTwo-sixty.”
    â€œBut still light on his feet? Not a bad dancer?”
    She looked surprised. “Who told you that?”
    â€œI can’t reveal her name.”
    â€œYou tell that son of a bitch—” Suddenly her face became human and she began to cry. “I can’t take it any more. Three kids to feed, the baby colicky—I can’t work and take care of his kids at the same time. If he’d just come home …”
    Barney put his hand on her shoulder. “We don’t know where he is, but we’ll find him. Will you help us, Mrs. Kiddoo?”
    â€œI’ve checked everywhere, his old hangouts, his friends, his family. Nobody’s seen him.”
    â€œDo you have a picture of him?”
    She went to the rear of the trailer, drying her eyes on her apron. She returned with a photograph of a man who was big rather than fat; he spread out in all directions, like a tree. He was standing with his hand on the hood of a shiny limousine, looking as if he owned it.
    Barney put the photo in his pocket, told the woman not to worry, and they left.
    When they were on the road again, Ed shook his head admiringly. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Barney. The way you got her mad, then worried, then made her cry. What technique do you use on men?”
    â€œMen or women, it doesn’t make any difference. Everybody’s full of