Shallow Grave-J Collins 3 Read Online Free PDF

bills
    —no cocktail party invitations for me—a car parked on the road between my house and the Babbitt’s.
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    A burgundy Ford Taurus with Arizona license plates.
    Maybe one of the Babbitt’s kids had actually deigned to visit their parents. Maybe they could convince their asshole father to quit beating up their mother.
    Not my business, at any rate. I’d nearly made it to my steps when a young female voice called out behind me.
    “Please. Wait. I’d like to talk to you.”
    I turned. Not visiting my neighbors after all. What could she want? Th
    e last thing I needed today was a
    door-to-door salesperson selling junky wildlife art. It boggled my mind why my low-income neighborhood was a magnet for these types of cold call sales. Th ey’d
    have had better luck selling gift certifi cates for the local bail bondsman’s services.
    Instead of pulling out a stack of framed pictures from the back seat, she’d unbuckled a small boy from a car seat and settled him on her hip. He pushed aside her thick black braid, which practically dragged on the ground, and buried his face in her neck as she hustled toward me.
    A brightly colored gauze skirt swished around her ankles. Sensible taupe shoes were silent on the gravel driveway. My gaze roamed over the vibrant turquoise and magenta jacket she wore, obviously hand-woven and handmade. Striking, but not practical attire for a harsh South Dakota winter.
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    Th
    e intense hues brought attention to her black eyes, shiny as buttons. She was very young, twenty or so. Native American. I knew she wasn’t Sioux, not because of the Arizona plates, but by the roundness of her face and the darker brown of her skin. Not a reddish hue like the Plains tribes, but closer to Mexican. It made me think of Martinez.
    A friend of his? My feeling of unease increased.
    Th
    e plump woman smiled nervously. “Are you Julie Collins?”
    “Yes. Do I know you?”
    “Umm. No, ma’am.”
    Ma’am ? Made me feel like a geezer. “What can I do for you?”
    “We have a mutual . . . umm, acquaintance.”
    “Yeah? Who?”
    She murmured in the boy’s ear, set him down on the sidewalk and handed him a toy metal car.
    I waited for her to answer.
    Apparently she was in no hurry to do so.
    With my extremely crappy afternoon, I’d longed to snuggle into my couch with a thermos of Irish coff ee—
    minus the coff ee. I suspected I’d be standing here until Letterman came on if I didn’t force her to get to the point.
    “Before you tell me the name of our mutual acquaintance, why don’t you start with your name?”
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    Her words tumbled out in a tangle of consonants.
    “Run that by me one more time?”
    With her accent, I heard gibberish and made her repeat it slowly a third time.
    “Abita Kahlen.” She’d pronounced her fi rst name, A-beet-a , last name, Kay-lin . “Th at’s my son. Jericho.”
    Th
    e little boy, around three, wasn’t dressed for playing on the cold, dirty ground. Didn’t bother him; he hadn’t looked up from racing the Matchbox car back and forth.
    “So, Abita. Who’s our mutual acquaintance? Or is that a tactic you’re using to try and soften me up to sell me something I don’t need?”
    Her brown eyes clouded. “No. I really am here to talk to you.”
    “I’m listening.”
    “Th
    ank goodness. You’re the only one who can help me.”
    My fake smile faltered.
    Occasionally clients showed up on my doorstep, hoping if I met them face to face, heard their tale of woe straight from the horse’s mouth, it’d compel me to take their case—for free—out of the goodness of my heart.
    Hadn’t worked so far and it immediately put me on the defensive. “I prefer to conduct business at my offi ce.”
    She frowned. “I’m not here for that. I’m here because—”
    Th
    e boy shrieked as his car performed a loop-de-36

    loop over the toe of my boot.
    Made me think of Langston Everett and I shuddered. I shoved the image aside and leaned down to pick up the purple