Old Loves Die Hard (A Mac Faraday Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page B

homicide detective he had en-countered many powerful people who delighted in crushing those who worked for them. Mac wanted so much to not become one of “those bosses”. 
    When Antonio asked if he wanted to go ahead and order, Mac checked the time on his watch. It was twenty minutes after nine o’clock. Assuming Christine had overslept, he used his master key card to take the elevator up to the penthouse.
    “Christine!” Mac called out while pounding on the door when she didn’t answer after his second knock. “Wake up. It’s time for breakfast.”
    “What the hell is going on?” The door across the corridor, which had a Do Not Disturb sign hanging on it, flew open.
    Mac’s apology for the disturbance was cut short by the shock of seeing the short, squat, bald-headed man standing naked before him. As bald as the top of his head was, his face was covered in a thick gray beard that went down his barrel chest and stomach and the rest of his exposed body.
    “Don’t you know that people are trying to sleep?” the naked man asked in a European accent so thick that Mac could only decipher his demand by piecing together what words he understood and the context of the situation.
    Mac found his voice. “I think my—” He stopped when he caught himself starting to call Christine his wife. “My friend was supposed to meet me for breakfast. I guess she slept in.”
    “Why don’t you try calling her instead of standing here pounding on the door like some heathen?” the naked man suggested. “All this noise and interruptions. If it isn’t the maid with towels, it’s someone playing horror movies, and now we have—”
    “Omar!” A woman came into view from the sitting room behind the bald man. “Who are you talking to out there?”
    Mac saw that the tall red-headed woman was as naked as her companion, though notably more attractive.
    “Some heathen trying to wake up the people in the suite across the hall,” he called back to her. Based on how he had left the door wide open, he didn’t seem to care if Mac saw her unclothed.
    “Well, if I were you I’d hurry up. The clock is ticking and my twenty-four hours is up in two.”
    With the eagerness of a boy being told that this would be his last chance to kiss his date good-night, he slammed the door shut.
    Using his key card, Mac let himself into Christine’s room.
    At first, the silence in the suite made Mac think that Christine had sobered up and, realizing how foolish she had behaved the day before, left to return home. Then, he realized that her car was still at Spencer Manor.
    The suite was too quiet.
    It was possible for Christine to have left through the lobby to take a cab to the manor to get her car while he was waiting for her in the restaurant. Mac hoped that, if that was the case, she wouldn’t run into Archie. If so, he was glad he wouldn’t be there to witness the scene.
    The empty room service tray was a clue that Christine had taken his advice to have dinner sent up. Not seeing any dishes, a quick check told him that she’d had the presence of mind to put her dirty dishes in the kitchenette’s dishwasher and run it. During his check inside the dishwasher, Mac noticed two plates and two wine glasses.
    It was a dinner for two.
    “No, Christine,” he murmured. “You didn’t.”
    He noticed the first blood splatter on the wall as he rounded the corner into the sitting area.
    That splatter was followed by another, then another, then a smear and a pool of blood.
    In the middle of the sitting room, Mac first saw the leather shoes covered in blood. As he stepped into the room, he saw the rest of the body lying behind the coffee table, which had been overturned in the mêlée.
    Christine, what have you done?
    The blood that saturated the carpeting soaked into the knees of his pants when he knelt to press his fingertips against the neck that had been sliced open.
    “Oh, Christine, no.” Mac tasted his tears in his mouth.
    Anger welled up inside