Slice Read Online Free PDF

move with them here in Sayer’s Brook. Jessie was going to need help not only in taking care of Abby, but also in fixing up the old house. Inga was particularly good with her hands. At the New York apartment, she’d rewired lighting fixtures for Jessie, and retiled the bathroom. Jessie figured Inga would prove very handy around Mom’s house, which was over a hundred years old, and had now sat vacant for more than five years.
    â€œHe was cleared after an investigation,” Monica was saying, coming to their famous neighbor’s defense.
    Todd just shrugged.
    â€œJohn Manning is no murderer,” Monica insisted. “He’s just a very private man, so everybody jumped to conclusions when they found his wife’s body.”
    Todd made a face. “But she had told friends she feared for her life, that he might try to kill her.”
    â€œMillie was paranoid,” Monica retorted. “She used to come to my basket classes. She was always thinking that her husband’s fans were following her. She was jumpy and nervous and unbalanced. No wonder she fell.”
    â€œI don’t know,” Aunt Paulette said. “When I tune in, I feel very mysterious energy emanating from that house.”
    â€œOh, please, enough with the mumbo jumbo,” Monica said. “John is a little mysterious. After all, he’s a horror writer. But he’s not a murderer.”
    They had resumed walking. Jessie tried to get a better glimpse of the house, but much of her view was obscured by the tall pines. She could make out a tall wooden fence surrounding the house. She was remembering now some of the details she’d read about the case. “The wife fell down the stairs or something, right?” she asked.
    â€œActually, she fell off the back upstairs deck,” Todd corrected her. “Facedown onto the concrete patio.” He winked at her. “Splat.”
    Jessie shuddered. But she wondered if her shudder was from the image of the woman’s horrific death or from the fact that Todd had just winked at her.
    She had a flash—high school—Todd Bennett, varsity track star, winking at her in chemistry class. He’d winked, he’d smiled, he’d flashed some pearly whites and the deepest dimples Jessie had ever seen. Not long after that, they’d started going out together. Jessie had been head-over-heels in love.
    But now Todd was her brother-in-law.
    With exactly the same dimples.
    They had reached Mom’s house. Except, it was no longer Mom’s house. It was Jessie’s house. Jessie and Abby’s house.
    The little girl ran up the front stairs. “Can I go inside ?” she asked excitedly.
    â€œYou sure can, Abs,” Jessie told her. “This is home now.”
    The living room looked as if Mom were still living there. The old checkered sofa was still rumpled and throw pillows were still scattered across it, as if Mom had been stretched out there just this morning, doing her crossword puzzles and watching Dr. Phil on the old television set in its wooden cabinet across the room. Little figures of Buddha and Quan Yin still stood on nearly every mahogany table, surrounded by dozens of ancient votive candles in little glass jars, burned down to almost nothing. Framed family snapshots—Mom and Dad on their honeymoon in Aruba, Jessie and Monica in second and first grades—still hung on the walls, their glass shrouded in a thin veneer of dust.
    â€œI came in yesterday and cleaned up a bit,” Aunt Paulette said, wiping some of the dust off of Jessie’s grade-school face with her fingers. “But there were a lot of cobwebs. Nobody’s been in here for some time.”
    â€œIt just needs a good vacuuming and airing out,” Jessie said, throwing open the windows to let in some of that crisp summer day. “What do you think, Inga? Anything that a new coat of paint can’t spruce up?”
    The German au pair was peering