Love you to Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

school.”
    “Does this mean you’re going to be good?”
    “Angelic.”
    Elise snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, right.”
    “Now who’s being cynical?”
    Elise drove to the bar, but Ashley’s bright lime-green Volvo was nowhere in sight. They cruised the streets around the community college with similar results. It was already light by the time Elise pulled into a grocery store parking lot to figure out where to go next.
    “Could she have gone out of town with one of her boyfriends?” asked Trent. “Maybe out of the country where her phone wouldn’t work?”
    “She didn’t mention she had a trip planned, but she has a tendency to be spontaneous.”
    Trent let out a bark of laughter before Elise’s glare cut him off. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But spontaneous doesn’t even begin to describe Ashley.”
    “You say that like you know her better than I do.”
    “She’s lived across the street from me for over a year. Did she ever tell you how we met?”
    “She mentioned you, but that was all.”
    “Her grass was so long it was breaking city code, so I went to mow it for her. I figured she was sick or something.”
    “She calls you Hot Lawn Guy. She mentioned your name once, but after that, I think she forgot it.”
    Trent rolled his eyes. “She hardly knows what day of the week it is, so I can see how names would be difficult.”
    “She’s not stupid,” said Elise, gathering steam to let him have it for insulting her sister.
    He held up his hands to ward her off. “Of course not. She strikes me as one of those people who are so smart they do dumb things.”
    Placated, Elise released her mental tirade.
    “So,” Trent continued with his story. “I go across the street with my mower to take care of her yard, and when I get there, her car is running. The car door is wide open, so is her front door. I worried that she was sick or hurt, so I knocked on the open door. She yelled for me to come in without knowing who I was.”
    Elise’s stomach sank. Ashley had always been too trusting for her own good.
    “I go in,” said Trent, “and she’s in her kitchen with her arms sunk up to the elbow in some kind of clay or plaster. All her dirty dishes are on the counter and her sink is full of the stuff.”
    “She likes to experiment with different mediums.”
    “Yeah, she said something along those lines, right before she asked if she could smear me with the stuff to make a mold. The woman didn’t even know my name.”
    “Were you shirtless?” asked Elise.
    “Yes. I was getting set to mow, and it was hot.”
    “You did it to yourself, then.”
    He ignored her opinion and went on. “My point is, I found out that she’d been home for two hours with her door open and her car running. She forgot to turn off the engine or close any of her doors. If she found something that interested her, she might go running off after it without letting you know.”
    What if he was right? What if Elise didn’t know as much about her sister as she thought?
    “I hope you’re right, Trent. I hope that Ashley is off in Paris with some sexy guy smearing him with clay or something. But I have this feeling, you know? This sickness in my stomach that tells me something’s not right.”
    “Gut instinct. You should listen to it. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry.”
    “You say that like you know from experience.”
    He looked away, staring toward the doors of the grocery store. “When did it start? This feeling?”
    “Saturday morning, your time. Ashley always called me to tell me about her Friday night adventures, but this time, she didn’t. I left her a message and tried not to think anything about it. I went to bed, slept badly. When I got up and she hadn’t returned my call, I tried again. Over and over. Pretty soon, her phone went directly to voice mail, like she’d turned it off.”
    “Or the battery went dead.”
    “Yeah. I called the police, and got on the next flight into Chicago.”
    “You’re a good sister