KISS THE WITCH Read Online Free PDF Page A

back early this morning on the
redeye. Would you like to see my ticket stub?”
    I crossed the room and put my hand out. “If
you don’t mind.”
    He reached into the inside pocket of his
suit jacket and produced a boarding pass for the Toronto to Boston
redeye run. I examined it briefly and returned it to him. “Thank
you.”
    “ No. No.” He pressed it
back into my hand. “Keep it. I don’t want you second-guessing
anything.”
    I stashed the ticket in my back pocket.
“Thank you again, Mister Ferguson.”
    “ You’re welcome,
Detective.” He scoffed lightly. “You know it’s funny.”
    “ What’s that?”
    “ McSweeney, my secretary.”
He rolled his eyes before dropping a dead stare to the floor. “My
former secretary, I should say. The poor dear died recently.
Horrible accident at home. Anyway, she made those reservations for
me. You know she never used to book me on the red eye. Knew how
much I hate night travel. The one time she does and this happens.”
He looked up at me. His eyes were wet, but his cheeks were dry. “I
can’t even give her hell for it now. Can I?”
    I shook my head. “No, sir. I guess you
can’t.”
    Out in the hall, Carlos was just hanging up
with Spinelli. As we started for the elevator, I asked him,
“Spinelli sending a unit out to Snow’s house?”
    “ It’s on its
way.”
    “ Did you think of telling
him to check out Biocrynetix Laboratories, too?”
    “ I did. I also asked him
to see what he can find out about Mark Williams and Rick
Delaney.”
    “ Good.”
    “ So, what do you
think?”
    “ `Bout what?”
    “ Ferguson. Is he telling
the truth? About the super sweetener, I mean.”
    “ I don’t know. I suppose
so. You know something that sweet is worth stealing. Just about
every processed food these days uses high fructose corn sweetener.
If they invented something four-thousand times sweeter, it could
revolutionize the food processing industry.”
    “ Yeah, but you see that’s
just it. I know it’s super sweet and all, but why produce only
800cc`s of it? That’s like this much.” He spread his thumb and
index finger to indicate a portioned amount in a lab beaker. “This
close to going public with it, I should thing they would have
produced gallons of the stuff in drums and tested it in hundreds of
food products already.”
    “ Hmm, I see your point,
Carlos. You know that often big product rollouts are impossible for
companies to keep completely under wraps this close to launch date.
I wonder if Spinelli can find something about QE647 on the
Internet. Why don’t you call him back and ask him if––”
    “ Already did.”
    “ You already asked him to
check it out?”
    “ Yup.”
    “ Okay. That’s
good.”
    A slick grin creased his face. “I’m getting
good at this, aren’t I?”
    I doubled-tapped him on the cheek and his
grin fell away. “After thirty years, my friend, I should hope
so.”
    We hopped into the car and headed back out.
“Spinelli was right,” he said. I think he was sulking.
    “ What do you
mean?”
    “ You don’t give me enough
credit.”
    “ Excuse me?”
    “ You don’t. You don’t give
either of us credit.”
    “ I most certainly do.
Didn’t I just say you did a good job?”
    “ No. You said Okay. That’s
good, but you didn’t say good job, Carlos.”
    “ What? Do you really need
affirmation from me for a job well done?”
    He tilted his head and offered a half shrug.
“Be nice.”
    “ All right then, job well
done. Nice work.”
    He scoffed at that. “Oh, like it means
anything now that I had to pry it out of you.”
    I felt my jaw slacken. I was speechless. I
never heard Carlos complain about my treatment of him before. He
certainly set me straight a time or two in the past about Spinelli,
reminding me to call him Dominic and to treat him like the equal he
is. After all, the man went through so much, getting shot in the
line of duty, then hooked on pain pills and completing rehab for
his addiction. I suppose