Stranger At My Door (A Murder In Texas) Read Online Free PDF Page B

strawberry-blond ponytail and plastic grocery sack.
    “She’s got my peanut butter.” Bounding off her front porch, Dinah went after the grocery thief. She’d spent nearly everything Teke gave her on utilities, and the remainder—about fifty bucks—on food. She wasn’t going to let ten dollars run off without a fight.
    “Stop! Someone stop her. She stole my groceries.” Unfortunately, the neighborhood appeared to be deserted except for a butterscotch tabby that arched its back and hissed when Dinah slapped by in her flip-flops.
    The girl veered off the sidewalk and slipped behind a blue bungalow. Dinah’s legs pumped harder, fueled by one all-consuming goal—get her peanut butter back. She closed in on the blue bungalow, angling over front lawns, then ricocheting off a magnolia tree. Hurdling into a narrow walkway beside the bungalow, she nearly tripped over a pair of torn sneakers. “Gotcha, you little varmint.”
    The girl, huddled against the house and raised her head to Dinah. Her blue-green eyes were round and frightened, and a delicate spray of freckles stood out against her pale skin. Her mouth, a pale slash under a turned-up nose, was hard. She’s hiding something.
    The girl held the bag out to Dinah, her hand curled into a tight fist around the handle. “Is this yours?”
    Dinah snatched the bag from her. “Of course, it’s—” She swallowed her words. The girl was pregnant. A lot pregnant. Dinah’s indignation softened and shifted.
    She followed Dinah’s gaze down to her belly. “Got knocked up.”
    Hunkering down by the girl, Dinah studied her mud-streaked legs and stained, oversized football jersey. “I can see that. How old are you?”
    “Almost nineteen.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Hollyn. Holly with an ‘n’ on the end. People always get it wrong.”
    “Do you have a last name?”
    Annoyance flickered across Hollyn’s face, then her expression smoothed. “Hollis.”
    Hollyn Hollis, huh? Not likely.
    “My name is Dinah. Dinah Pittman.”
    “Sorry about taking your stuff.”
    “Forget it. Do you live around here?”
    “No.”
    “Where are you from?”
    Hollyn buried her face in her hands. “Nowhere.”
    “You have to be from somewhere, don’t you? Unless you fell out of the sky.”
    “Then I fell out of the sky,” she muttered.
    “Come on, you can tell me. I’m a great listener. Besides, I’ve had lots of crappy things happen to me, so I’d never judge anyone else. Swear.”
    Hollyn raised her head. “Like what?”
    This girl sure wasn’t from anywhere close to El Royo if she had to ask. “Like when I was your age my dad robbed an armored car and went to prison, and my mom ran away.”
    Hollyn studied her. “You don’t seem very sad about it.”
    Dinah turned away and stared at the street. Heat was already rising from the pavement in shimmering waves, and it was barely eleven o’clock. A car door slammed, and she thought of the vulnerable groceries sitting in her trunk and how when she was growing up here, she’d never guessed her life would become an exhausting, never-ending scramble for food and shelter. She met Hollyn’s eyes. “Why should I be sad? It happened eight years ago.”
    “If you’ve moved on, why are you here?”
    A twinge of discomfort passed through Dinah. Where had it come from? She glanced back at the street, but the narrow slice she could see was quiet.
    Maybe Hollyn sensed Dinah’s uneasiness because she came clean on her story. “My boyfriend ditched me at the gas station off the highway yesterday. I don’t have anywhere to go, and even if I did, I don’t have any money.”
    Me, too.
    “What about your parents? Where are they?” Maybe she could shame a little more cash out of Teke for a bus ticket.
    The girl shook her head. “They threw me out. Called me a slut, and my daddy hit me in the stomach.” The girl rested her hands on her belly. “Thought I was going to lose my baby.”
    A self-righteous anger exploded in Dinah.