One Fool At Least Read Online Free PDF Page B

parents, Pat and Libby. They sat holding hands, like teenagers on a date. Pat leaned toward Jack. “She looks a little green around the gills, Bro.”
    Jack nodded, looking nervously at me. “Do you need the airsickness bag, Maddy?”
    “I don’t think so,” I said. “Jack, I’m scared.”
    He looked crestfallen. “I never should have asked you to do this. I guess I didn’t understand how bad it was. I’m so sorry, Maddy.”
    I was gripping his hand again, holding it tight. I could feel the individual bones, the connecting of knuckle to finger. “I can do it, I’m sure I can do it. Just—if you could distract me? Maybe tell me a story, like your dad did, or—”
    Jack looked even guiltier. “I’ve been drinking water, and I really have to run to the lavatory. Just for a second. Do you want me to get Pat to come and hold your hand?”
    I began to tremble. “No. It’s bad enough, whatever psycho thing I did at the airport. I don’t want them to know, I don’t want them to see. I wish they weren’t all here.”
    Jack kissed my hand and promised to return in a moment, then darted from his seat.
    I found it quickly filled by Molly.
    “Hi, Madeline,” she said, with her lovely green stare.
    “Hello, Molly. It’s so nice to have you back where you belong,” I joked weakly. She didn’t get it, of course, the song was long before her time, and mine too, but I knew every song from every musical. A little-known fact about me.
    “Huh?” she asked, smiling.
    “Nothing. Old joke. Have you uh—enjoyed the flight?” I asked, finding it difficult to maintain my concentration.
    “It’s okay. Listen, I wanted to ask you. Did you really get shot one time?”
    The question surprised me enough to distract me from my misery. “Uh—yeah. That’s true. I don’t think Jack wants me to discuss—”
    “I won’t tell him, or anything. I just want to know. I was asking some people about you at the wedding, Mike and I were, and they said you’re like this great investigator. That you figured out two murders, and it was in all the papers. I know Dad was talking about it, too, when it happened, he and Mom were saying as how this girlfriend of Jack’s always seemed to find trouble, just like those detectives in the books. They thought it was sort of funny.”
    “Glad to amuse,” I said wryly, thinking how their image of me must have changed since the airport incident, which was slowly coming back to me.
    “Well, no,” she said quickly. “They didn’t think it was funny that you got shot. They just thought it was funny that you were so little and cute and pretty and yet you always got in all this trouble. We have this picture of you on the mantel, of you and Jack.”
    The flattery perked me right back up again. It didn’t actually matter how genuine it was. “That’s nice,” I said. My hands relaxed slightly, remembering that I had, in fact, faced dangers worse than sitting on a plane.
    “Anyway, I know you’re on your honeymoon and everything, but Mike and I want you to look into Slider’s disappearance. I mean, you’re already involved, aren’t you, because that guy came to see you, that weird guy, and he’s proof that something funny is going on. I’m worried about Slider, although I think he’s okay.” Her eyes grew wistful for a moment, then businesslike. “We’d pay you. We’ve got money saved. We both still have our money from eighth grade graduation. Uncle Jack alone sent us each a hundred dollars.”
    I hadn’t known this, of course, I didn’t know Jack then, but it pleased me to hear it, his generosity to his niece and nephew. Mike hadn’t been in the wheelchair back then; he’d only been in it for two months, ever since his car accident.
    Jack had flown to Montana in April; that’s when it had happened, the accident Slider had saved him from, and it had ended Mike up in the hospital. He was in for a week and had come home in a wheelchair, prognosis uncertain. Presently he had no