Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense Read Online Free PDF Page A

formulate a plan for distracting Sophie so she could get to the sink with her salad bowl full of Cocoa muck when the phone rang. It was Jessica’s first cousin Angela. Angela Giovanni was a year younger, and was the closest thing to a sister Jessica had ever had.
    “Hey, Homicide Detective Balzano,” Angela said.
    “Hey, Angie.”
    “Did you sleep?”
    “Oh yeah. I got the full two hours.”
    “You ready for the big day?”
    “Not really.”
    “Just wear your tailored armor, you’ll be fine,” Angela said.
    “If you say so,” Jessica said. “It’s just that . . .”
    “What?”
    Jessica’s dread was so unfocused, so general in nature, she had a hard time putting a name to it. It really did feel like her first day of school. Kindergarten. “It’s just that this is the first thing in my life I’ve ever been afraid of.”
    “Hey!” Angela began, revving up her optimism. “Who made it through college in three years?”
    It was an old routine for the two of them, but Jessica didn’t mind. Not today. “Me.”
    “Who passed the promotion exam on her first try?”
    “Me.”
    “And who kicked the living, screaming shit out of Ronnie Anselmo for copping a feel during Beetlejuice ?”
    “That would be me,” Jessica said, even though she remembered not really minding all that much. Ronnie Anselmo was pretty cute. Still, there was a principle.
    “Damn straight. Our own little Calista Braveheart,” Angela said. “And remember what Grandma used to say: Meglio un uovo oggi che una gallina domani .”
    Jessica flashed on her childhood, on holidays at her grandmother’s house on Christian Street in South Philly, on the aromas of garlic and basil and Asiago and roasting peppers. She recalled the way her grandmother would sit on her tiny front stoop in spring and summer, knitting needles in hand, the seemingly endless afghan spooling on the spotless cement, always green and white, the colors of the Philadelphia Eagles, spouting her witticisms to all who would listen. This one she used all the time. Better an egg today than a chicken tomorrow .
    The conversation settled into a tennis match of family inquiries. Everyone was fine, more or less. Then, as expected, Angela said:
    “You know, he’s been asking about you.”
    Jessica knew exactly who Angela meant by he .
    “Oh yeah?”
    Patrick Farrell was an emergency room physician at St. Joseph’s Hospital, where Angela worked as an RN. Patrick and Jessica had had a brief, if rather chaste affair before Jessica had gotten engaged to Vincent. She had met him one night when, as a uniformed cop, she brought a neighborhood boy into the ER, a kid who had blown off two fingers with an M-80. She and Patrick had casually dated for about a month.
    Jessica was seeing Vincent at the time—himself a uniformed officer out of the Third District. When Vincent popped the question, and Patrick was faced with a commitment, Patrick had deferred. Now, with the separation, Jessica had asked herself somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion times if she had let the good one get away.
    “He’s pining, Jess,” Angela said. Angela was the only person north of Mayberry who used words like pining . “Nothing more heartbreaking than a beautiful man in love.”
    She was certainly right about the beautiful part. Patrick was that rare black Irish breed—dark hair, dark blue eyes, broad shoulders, dimples. Nobody ever looked better in a white lab coat.
    “I’m a married woman, Angie.”
    “Not that married.”
    “Just tell him I said . . . hello,” Jessica said.
    “Just hello?”
    “Yeah. For now. The last thing I need in my life right now is a man.”
    “Probably the saddest words I’ve ever heard,” Angela said.
    Jessica laughed. “You’re right. It does sound pretty pathetic.”
    “Everything all set for tonight?”
    “ Oh yeah,” Jessica said.
    “What’s her name?”
    “You ready?”
    “Hit me.”
    “Sparkle Munoz.”
    “Wow,” Angela said.