The Killing Vision Read Online Free PDF

she knew she was the only buffer between his temper and their
son, and if she weren’t there to take the blows, Derek would be the only other
target. And even though he was a big kid, more than capable of defending
himself, she did not want to put him in that position.
    And what kind of life could she make on her own? 
She was a high-school dropout with no marketable skills and no money of her
own.  What little she had managed to save (socked away for Derek’s college
education), the asshole had blown on that damned Mustang. 
    She knew she certainly couldn’t go back to her
parents; they had made that perfectly clear when she became pregnant.  “If
you’re gonna lay with a dog, you gotta live with his fleas,” her father had
told her. 
    But she did have a choice.  She looked at the
gun and took a sip of coffee, not tasting it.  She could be ready when he came
home.  She could be sitting right here at the table, pointing it at him when he
came through the back door.  She could shoot him right between the eyes and he
would never know what had hit him.  She could already see the blood and brains
sprayed all over the walls and the window.  It would be one mess she wouldn’t
mind cleaning up.
    But she might miss.  And if she did…  If she missed,
God help her.  He would kill her.  She had no doubt about that.  There would be
no hope for either her or Derek then.
    She rested her head on her hands and wept.
    * * *
    3:35 PM
    Sarah Jo McElvoy’s mother was not doing well today. 
Not well at all.
    She met Halloran and Chapman at the door with red
eyes and tousled hair, looking like she hadn’t slept in days and smelling
faintly of whiskey.  She made no move to let them in, said nothing to them as
she looked at them blankly.  She had been forty when Sarah Jo had been born,
Halloran remembered her telling them, which would make her fifty-four now, but
she looked at least seventy this afternoon.
    Halloran licked his dry lips.  “Mrs. McElvoy?”
    “What do you want?”
    “I’m Detective Mike Halloran,” he said, holding up
his badge.  “This is my partner, John Chapman.  Remember us?”
    She continued to stare at them.
    “May we come in and talk with you for a minute?”
    She moved aside and they stepped into the dark
house.
    The living room was dusty and cluttered and smelled
of stale cigarette smoke and cat urine.  Halloran took a seat on a ragged sofa,
and Chapman sat tentatively beside him.  Mrs. McElvoy slumped into a grimy
vinyl recliner opposite them and continued to stare. 
    Halloran swallowed and took a memo pad from his
shirt pocket.  She was beginning to unnerve him with her glazed expression. 
“First of all,” he said, “I just want to let you know how sorry we are for—”
    “You caught him yet?”
    Halloran looked up at her.  “Excuse me?”
    “The bastard that killed my little girl.  Have you
caught him yet?”
    Halloran managed a grim sympathetic smile.  “Not
yet.”
    Mrs. McElvoy was shaking her head.  “Sumbitch is
gonna pay.  He’s gonna pay for what he did to Sarah Jo.”
    Halloran glanced at Chapman, then leafed through his
notepad.  “Mrs. McElvoy, when Sarah Jo first disappeared, you told us that you
didn’t know anyone who might have taken her.  Is that still the case?”
    She looked at him squarely.  “I don’t know anybody
that would have wanted to hurt Sarah Jo.”  One tear, fat and round, squeezed
from her eye and slid silently down her lined cheek.  “She was sweet.  Such a
sweet girl.”
    “What about Sarah Jo’s father?  Have you heard
anything from him?  The last time we talked to you, you said you hadn’t spoken
to him.  Has any of that changed since…”  He started to say “since the body was
found,” but decided that was a bit cold; the poor woman was just now coming to
grips with the fact that her daughter was officially dead, not just missing. 
He cleared his throat.  “Has he contacted you since Sarah Jo was