Murder With Reservations Read Online Free PDF Page B

job,” Helen said. “I had no life outside the office. All I did was work. I sentenced myself to seventeen years of hard labor. In Fort Lauder-dale, I set myself free. I don’t have as much money, but I can come home and toast the sunset. I can sit out by the pool with my friends. I have a good man like Phil.”
    “He’s sexy, too,” Margery said. “Don’t forget that.”
    Peggy winced, and Helen thought the subject of sexy men might still be painful. “What about your family and friends back home?” she said.
    “What friends?” Helen said. “I didn’t have any real friends—not like you two. I had business contacts and lunch partners. I love my sister, Kathy, but she’s so perfect I don’t know what to say to her. I love Mom, but she’s hopeless. She thinks Rob and I should get back to-gether.That’s why she still talks with him. She didn’t take my side in the divorce. She said marriage is forever.”
    “It just seems that way,” Margery said. “Listen, Phil’s a private detective and a smart guy. Why don’t you get him to help you? I gather Rob had more than one squeeze. Phil can find witnesses to your ex’s constant cheating. He can dig up people who will swear Rob spent seven years loafing on your money. You can go back to court with better ammunition.”
    “No, thanks,” Helen said. “Rob knows how to talk to the old boys on the bench. He’d charm a woman judge right out of her robes. You don’t know him. He’ll win again, and I’ll wind up in jail. I’m not risking my life and my freedom in a system that’s already messed up once. I don’t trust it.”
    “Can’t say I blame you,” Margery said.
    “Me, either,” Peggy said. She’d had her own problems with the law. That’s where she met her policeman.
    “Besides,” Helen said, “I want to keep Phil out of this. It’s my problem, not his.”
    “Maybe I can find a solution that doesn’t require a lawyer,” Margery said. She stared into the smoke.
    “You know any hit men?” Helen asked.
     

 

    y ou know any hit men? Helen’s question hung in the air like a curse. She was surprised she’d said it. Then a red rage surged through her and she wanted Rob dead. Helen would have given anything—her money, her freedom, her life. She hated her ex-husband, hated how she’d believed in him, hated how she’d run from him. How could that twisted judge give Helen’s hard-earned money to the man who’d used her?
    God or the devil handed me a crowbar when I walked in on that cheating scum, she thought. She could feel its sun-warm heft in her hand and its heavy, destructive strength. If I had it again, I wouldn’t slaughter an innocent SUV. I’d smash Rob.
    Peggy went rigid, watching her face. She knew Helen was serious.
    The taut silence stretched into the black night, as the three women sat there. Helen nursed her hate, Peggy held her fear, and Margery stayed a silent sorceress in sexy shoes.
    Then Margery laughed and blew smoke, and the red demon eye of her cigarette winked. “Helen, I’m an old lady living in Lauderdale. All I know are other old women. All they’d do is love Rob to death.”
    The spell was broken. Helen’s brutal anger fled like a mugger who’d heard a police siren. She could barely hide her relief. Margery hadn’t taken her seriously. She’d saved Helen from her own murderous impulse by pretending she didn’t mean it. Helen felt weak with relief. How many of the divorced wished their exes dead, just for a moment? How many gave in to that temptation?
    Helen looked up and saw a man with ice-white hair shimmering in the moonlight. It was Phil. How long had he been standing there? What did he hear? Did he know Rob was looking for her? Did he know she’d wanted to kill her ex-husband? Could he love a woman with her ugly desires?
    Phil gave his crooked grin, the one that made the corners of his eyes crinkle, and said, “Hi, Helen. I’m cooking dinner for you tonight.”
    He sounded so ordinary, so