Murder With Reservations Read Online Free PDF

that turned up later on my credit card. I was dumb enough to believe him when he said he was looking for work that used his abilities.”
    Helen couldn’t say the rest out loud. It was too painful. She’d really thought Rob had loved her. She still remembered him holding her hand in the restaurant and saying, “Please believe in me, Helen. There’s no one like you.”
    He was right, Helen thought bitterly. No other woman was quite as stupid as I was.
    “So what happened?” Margery said.
    “I went around with my eyes wide shut for seven years. I knew things weren’t right, but they weren’t wrong enough for me to do anything. Then one summer afternoon I was on my lunch hour at work reading this women’s-magazine article called, ‘Ten Ways to Turn Your Marriage from Ho-Hum to Hot.’ Number six said, ‘Be impulsive. Surprise your husband with a romantic interlude in the afternoon. Your life will never be the same.’
    “So I did. I canceled another boring meeting and went home. I surprised Rob on the back deck with our next-door neighbor, Sandy. They were boffing like bunnies.”
    “Awk!” Pete said.
    “My feeling exactly,” Helen said. “Rob had been working on the deck before he started nailing Sandy. I saw this crowbar right at my feet.”
    “So you beat the living daylights out of him.” Margery’s smile was ferocious.
    “No, I beat up his SUV. Reduced it to rubble.”
    “You really know how to hurt a man,” Margery said.
    “Oh, I hurt him, all right. He cried when they towed it away. He never drove anything as nice again. I paid for that car, and I was glad I’d wrecked it. It felt good. You want to hear the ironic part? He always said he didn’t like Sandy.”
    “You don’t have to like a woman to screw her,” Margery said. She gave that scary smile again. Pete huddled against Peggy’s neck. Helen didn’t blame him.
    “Did Rob press charges for assault?” Peggy asked.
    “He was too embarrassed. When the cops showed up he was cowering inside the battered SUV, naked as a jaybird.”
    “Awk!” Pete said.
    “I don’t understand,” Peggy said. “If you didn’t beat him up, why are you on the run?”
    “His lawyer got me. When I divorced the unfaithful creep, his lawyer showed photos of the wrecked SUV in court. The idiot judge decided Rob wasn’t a layabout for seven years. His Dis-Honor said Rob was a house husband who’d worked hard to control his hysterical wife and helped her be a productive earner. He awarded Rob half my income. He actually wanted me to give that worthless SOB fifty thousand dollars a year. I went crazy. I stood up in court and swore on the Bible that Rob would never see a nickel of my money.”
    “That must have been dramatic,” Margery said.
    “It was,” Helen said. “Even after I realized I’d sworn on a copy of the Missouri Revised Statutes. It looked like a Bible. Anyway, I took off in the middle of the night and ended up here in South Florida, where I work low-profile jobs for cash under the table.
    “I thought I had it figured out. I wasn’t in any company computer. I didn’t have a phone, a credit card, a bank account, or a Florida driver’s license. I was sure Rob couldn’t find me. But he did.”
    “He’s after your measly income?” Margery said. “What do you make? Two hundred fifty dollars a week?”
    “Two sixty-eight,” Helen said. It sounded pathetic when she said it. A month’s pay as a hotel maid wouldn’t cover her American Express bill from the old days.
    “Hardly seems worth his effort,” Margery said.
    “No handout is too small for Rob to accept. But it’s more than money. I’m in contempt of court,” Helen said. “He could have me dragged back to St. Louis. I could wind up in jail for running out on him. Or I might have to go back to a corporate job to avoid jail—and that would be almost as bad as prison.”
    “Why?” Peggy said. “What’s wrong with making six figures?”
    “I hated every day of that