Salter, Anna C Read Online Free PDF Page B

move back into town with Carlotta? You and she got along when you were living there before."
    I knew, then, where this was going. He had called Carlotta. "I can't move in with Carlotta," I said sitting down to face him. "If there is any risk, and I'm not saying there is, I don't want to put her in the middle of it. You know Carlotta. She doesn't know zip about self-defense. She used to hate it when I had guns in the house."
    "You can't stay here now, not with Willy out. You're a quarter mile from the nearest neighbor."
    "Why not?" As if I didn't know.
    "Michael, have you ever been to the scene of a homicide?"
    "No," I said. "What's that got to do with anything?"
    "Because I'm not sure you realize what you're getting into."
    "I'm not getting into anything."
    "Buy that and I've got a bridge to sell you."
    "Adam, there's no point to this."
    "Look, I do not want to find your bruised and broken body with needles under your fingernails."
    "Cut it out, Adam. Isn't that a little baroque?" It was kind of a weak comeback, but I didn't seem to have anything convincing to say. Adam was way ahead of me. He had a full head of steam about this, and I was still flapping around on a beach in Hawaii. So much for letting your guard down.
    "Not if you have found bodies like that before." Well, he hadn't, at least not in Vermont. Well, actually, maybe he had. Like most of the country, Vermont had had at least one serial killer, I remembered. He had operated for a couple of years a while back, leaving a body every six months. All right, so that kind of thing could happen here.
    "He will kill you," Adam said quietly.
    "You could at least say 'could.'"
    "He will kill you," Adam said a little more strongly, "and then I will kill him."
    "Come on, Adam. For Christ's sake. You will not. You're a cop, a good cop. You don't go around killing people."
    "I will kill him," Adam said again, firmly. "But it will do no good because you will be just as dead. And then I will miss you," he said gently, "every day for the rest of my life."
    I froze. He was repeating back to me something I had said to him about my daughter who had died of SIDS a few years back. Jordan was absolutely my Achilles' heel. I had had no warning he was going to raise her, and her death rose from whatever pool of misery I kept it trapped in and flooded through every pore. Suddenly I had the metallic taste in my mouth I had had for weeks after she died —grief has effects no one can seem to explain. I got very cold and knew if I wasn't lucky I would start shaking soon from the cold. I looked up. Surely, the reference had been inadvertent. Surely, he had not meant to invoke Jordan. I saw in his eyes that he had, and I stood up.
    My voice was dead calm, but to say it had ice in it was to say the Arctic Circle had a couple of cubes. It also had a sound in it a rattler makes when you step on it. "Don't you ever, ever in your lifetime or mine use Jordan against me again. Not for any reason. Not to save my life. Not to save the lives of all the starving children in the known universe. Not one time. Not ever."
    I was dizzy and cold. I went over and picked up my car keys and my coat. Adam had gone stock-still. Wisely, he didn't speak. "Be out of here by the time I get back," I said. I knew he would. He had not heard that tone in my voice before. But then again, neither had I.
    It took enormous effort, but I made myself stop at the door on the way out. I put one hand on the frame to steady myself and turned back. "I can't do it your way. I can't hide behind your coattails and live in your shadow. I can't run home to big daddy when the going gets rough. I know exactly how dangerous Willy is, far more than you do, and yes, he probably will kill me if I'm stupid or careless enough to give him the chance. But if I run and hide, I'll lose who I am anyway, and it isn't worth it, so stay out of it. I'll make it or I won't. All you will do is destroy what's between us." Adam didn't speak again, and I waited