Sandra Hill - [Jinx] Read Online Free PDF Page B

shove me away.
Just being near him made her stomach churn and made her want to bolt, but she had important business to discuss first.
    Frank frowned. “It’s about time you got here, girl.”
    “What do you mean? You never invited me.”
    “What? You need a hoity-toity engraved invitation to visit your grandfather? Your grandmother turned you against me a long time ago. The bitch!”
    Flossie harrumphed her opinion.
    Well, this is a pleasant start to our visit.
Veronica sat down opposite him and let out a whoosh of frustration at the same old direction their conversation was heading. “Listen to me, old man, you are not going to lay a guilt trip on me. You are the one who threw me overboard into the bay when I was only five years old.”
    “
That
again! I was tryin’ to teach you how to swim, for chrissake. You were babied too much by that Boston bunch. Besides, you had a life vest on. You were never in danger of drowning.”
    “How was I to know that?” she cried out. “You don’t teach children to swim by tossing them overboard.”
    “Oh, yeah? You learned to swim that day, didn’t you?”
    And to hate the ocean and salt water, which she’d swallowed about a gallon of.
    “Then there was the time you terrorized me by taking me on that roller coaster in Asbury Park—the one that went out over the ocean.” She’d smelled the salt air that time, too.
    “It was fun,” he protested.
    “For you, maybe. Not for me. I was scared.”
    “Kids like to be scared on rides.”
    “Not this kid!”
    He shook his head as if she were a freak.
    “Then there was the waterskiing incident. And the deep-water fishing trip—for sharks, of all things.”
No wonder I have an aversion to salt water. I don’t need a shrink to diagnose my Pavlovian association.
    Flossie made a clucking sound at their juvenile squabbling, then picked up the dishes again and walked toward the kitchen, tsk-tsk-tsking the whole way.
    “All that is beside the point. I’m here because of this.” She slammed some legal documents on the table. “What is this all about?”
    He didn’t even look at the papers. Instead, he spoke around the cigar in his mouth. “I’m taking care of business.”
    “Why me?”
    He shrugged. “You’re the only family I have.”
    “How about Flossie?”
    Flossie yelled from the kitchen, “I don’t want it.”
    “Floss wouldn’t know treasure from tulips.” Her grandfather downed the last of his liquor.
    “And I would?”
    “She thinks pink flamingoes are fine art.”
    “Do not!” Flossie yelled again.
    “Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I wouldn’t have a clue how to run a treasure-hunting company.”
    “I’ll teach you.”
    I’d rather swim with sharks.
“No, thanks.”
    “Anyhow, your job would be more like supervising. Hiring. Budgets. That kind of crap. You’re a corporate something-or-other, aren’t you?”
    He doesn’t even know what I do for a living.
“Why should I?”
    “Like I said, you’re the only one.”
    There was an insult in there somewhere. “Why now?”
    “You figure it out, girlie. You got one of them phi beta thingees, dontcha?” There was a nasty tone to his voice. For a man trying to convince her to do something she didn’t want to, he was doing the opposite.
    She tilted her head to the side. Something was very strange here. More strange than usual. Enough with beating around the bush. “Are you in financial trouble?”
    His face reddened with what she assumed was embarrassment. Men and their pride! “I’m not about to go belly-up . . . yet . . . if that’s what you’re asking.”
    She noticed the nervous tic in her grandfather’s jaw and the strange expression on his face. Then she noticed Flossie standing in the doorway, wringing her hands, frowning at Frank. Meanwhile, the “Beer Barrel Polka” blasted through the speakers.
    “What? How bad is it?” she demanded.
    Her grandfather gulped several times and held Flossie’s gaze, as if pondering whether