Something Wicked Read Online Free PDF Page A

he was handsome in a lean, hard way and had dark hair and white teeth. “How many weeks are left?”
    â€œAbout three.”
    â€œOkay, fine. I’ll try. And we’re meeting in the conference room in about ten,” he said.
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œThe Donatella homicides. O’Halloran’s got something new apparently.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œThat’s the word.”
    â€œI was just at Bankruptcy Bluff,” she said, surprised.
    â€œI know.” He shrugged.
    Savannah and the rest of the department had been working on the Donatella case for long months and were no closer to an arrest than they’d been when the crime was committed. The double homicide of Marcus and Chandra Donatella had taken place at their home on Bancroft Bluff. It was weird that she’d just come from there today, after rousting out Mickey, and now there was new information? Kind of mind-boggling.
    But sometimes cases were like that, she reminded herself. Nothing forever, and then things suddenly broke open and started running hot as a fever.
    Maybe they were actually going to solve this damn thing.

CHAPTER 2
    â€œC ould you put that down for one minute?” Declan Bancroft grumbled irritably from the oversize executive desk chair in his home office. He pointed to the cell phone pressed to his grandson’s ear.
    â€œI want to catch Russo before he leaves work.” Hale St. Cloud stayed on the line, waiting for the Portland manager to answer. “Vledich said we were red tagged, and I want to know who he talked to at the city and why construction was stopped.”
    â€œWho’s this Vledich?” the old man demanded.
    â€œThe foreman,” Hale answered, staring through the window of his grandfather’s sprawling Bancroft Development home, the grounds of which meandered over several acres along a rocky tor with a spectacular view of Deception Bay. “You know Clark Russo in the Portland office. Vledich works for him.”
    â€œOf course I know Russo,” Declan said grumpily.
    Russo was one of the newer managers employed by Bancroft Development. He had started in the Seaside office and had recently been transferred to Portland at the recommendation of Sylvie Strahan, Hale’s right-hand woman. Their Portland manager had quit after the debacle over Bancroft Bluff, and when the opening in Portland popped up, Sylvie suggested Russo, at least for the interim. It had taken a little talking as Russo had been reluctant to leave the area; he’d grown up on the coast.
    â€œBut this Vledich I don’t know,” Declan said, taking a deep breath, as if he was about to launch into a diatribe about being the last to know, a favorite gripe of his, but Hale held up a hand as he left a message for Russo, asking the manager to call him. As soon as he was finished, he clicked off, but Declan snorted and waved at his phone. “What’s happened to the world? Yes, yes, it’s good to be able to catch someone at a job site, but all this texting and e-mail and playing with the phone . . . ack .” That was his grandfather’s favorite sound of disgust: ack.
    â€œIf I don’t hear back from him, I’ll send him a text.”
    â€œIn my day we answered the phone so as not to lose a customer.”
    Another favorite diatribe, which Hale ignored. There was no changing his grandfather’s mind about the evils of technology, and he’d wasted enough breath trying to last him a lifetime. That was why Hale had built his own home north of Deception Bay, closer to Seaside and the Bancroft Development offices, on a similar rocky bluff, a little bit removed from his grandfather.
    But Declan had made his home in Deception Bay for most of his life, preferring the sleepy oceanside hamlet to the joint tourist mecca of Seaside and Cannon Beach. It was pure irony, therefore, that through his own real estate development, Declan was helping change the landscape of