The Jewels of Cyttorak Read Online Free PDF Page A

from a normal five-foot-ten, to six-and-a-half feet tall. And muscled, as if he had been lifting weights for ten years. It was like something that happened only in a special effect on television, or to some New York super hero, not in the real world. People don’t just grow in front of your eyes.
    But Robert had.
    Gary slowly moved into the huge kitchen, shaking his head at the insanity of what he had seen. He retrieved a tall glass and filled it with milk, then grabbed some freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies. Robert always snorted at Gary’s childhood habit of milk and cookies, but Gary loved it, and if it helped Robert continue to believe that Gary was weak and young and stupid, so much the better.
    Robert would soon find out different. He was in for a big surprise when the old man died and Robert discovered that Gary owned fifty-one percent of the Service businesses. And he would be even more surprised when Gary stepped in and ran the business with the intent of giving all the profits and eventually all the business to charity. That would make Robert see red. But there would be nothing the older brother could do about it. Nothing at all, no matter how big he got.
    Gary dropped down at the large kitchen table and gazed out the darkened window at the night beyond. The only light came from down near the garage area and filled the old trees with a faint glow. Otherwise, the estate was dark and quiet.
    His mother had made the entire family have breakfast together at this table every day. Gary had liked that, right
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    up until the day she died. Robert, of course, had hated it, and complained every day about the chore.
    And more often than not, he got hit by their father for his complaints. As far as Gary was concerned, Robert had usually deserved what he got. Granted, the old man had been hard on Robert when he was young, but the old man had been hard on everyone around him, including his own wife. The poor woman had died broken five years ago and it was on that day that Gary decided to take over the hard-earned and so-important business of his father and give every penny to charities, the very thing that his father would have hated. And his mother would have loved.
    It had taken Gary almost two years before he convinced his father to change his will and give him that extra one percent. And not tell Robert he was doing so. Two years of being nice to an old man he hated.
    Now the old man was dying. Gary knew his older brother wanted their father gone more than anything. For certain Robert would have been surprised to learn Gary did, also. Maybe even more than Robert.
    Robert Service Sr.’s death would not be one that anyone would mourn. And that was a pity. No one should die that way.
    Gary finished his milk and cookies and stood. He put the glass in the sink and then headed back for his father’s room. His first inclination was to go see how his older brother was doing with his new growth and muscles, but after a moment, he decided that really didn’t matter. What was important tonight was making sure the old man didn’t change a thing in his will or his business until his death.
    And to do that, Gary had to stay at his side and keep smiling.
    There would be more than enough time for celebrating later, after the old man was dead.
    The French Quarter in New Orleans is layered over and over with history. Every building, every courtyard, every park or street has a special history. The people who lived and worked in the French Quarter used that history to draw customers in any way they could. And it was also rumored that the streets and buildings of the French Quarter were filled with the ghosts of the people who had made all that history.
    Remy LeBeau had never seen a ghost in all his years of growing up on those streets. And on this late night, he didn’t expect to run into one. What he did expect was to discover who stood like a ghost in the shadows of a doorway across the street, listening to his private