The Tulip Eaters Read Online Free PDF Page A

just any money.” She and Nora exchanged excited looks.
    Richards looked at Nora. “You recognize it?”
    Nora nodded, stunned. “It’s a Dutch twenty-five guilder note.” She looked down at the dead man’s face. “He was Dutch? Why would some Dutchman want to kill my mother? Or kidnap Rose?”
    “Hold on,” said Richards. “He could be anyone. Dutch, German, American—who knows? Maybe he’s just someone who traveled there recently and that’s why he had guilders in his pocket.” He handed the bill to the investigator, who bagged it. “Check it for prints.”
    Nora leaned closer. She pointed. “Lieutenant, what’s that?”
    Richards dug farther in the man’s right pants pocket. As the item came free, Nora caught a glint of silver and saw shock on Richards’s face. Her heart quickened as she stared at Richards’s upturned hand. A pistol. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “I can’t believe this.”
    He turned it over and examined it. He held it up, looked down the barrel, sniffed and shook his head. “Looks brand-new. And it hasn’t been fired today.”
    Marijke and Nora gave each other confused looks.
    “If this is his gun...” began Marijke.
    “Then whose gun is that?” finished Nora, pointing at the black gun on the sofa.

4
    Anneke de Jong grasped her trowel more firmly as she peered through the bay window into the sunken living room. She could see Rose sleeping peacefully in the wicker bassinet Anneke had bought when she was born. It stood close to the window so Anneke could check on her frequently while she worked in the garden, as she did every afternoon. She peered at her watch. Twelve-thirty. Rose would sleep at least another hour.
    As she straightened, she felt a pain in her back. Sixty. The thought amazed her. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself as forty—not a day older. She knelt next to the pool and glanced at her reflection. A slight woman with shoulder-length silver hair stared back. In the calm water, she could even see her hazel eyes and the wrinkles etched in their corners. What had happened to the young girl with jet-black hair and endless possibilities?
    Walking back to her garden, she refused to think of the different choices she could have made. It doesn’t matter. At least the cancer is gone. She remembered the look in the doctor’s eyes when he’d told her that she had malignant tumors in both breasts. Gone, she now thought. All gone. She still felt the phantom of their softness until her silver locket brushed against the empty places where her breasts used to be.
    She held up the trowel to shade her eyes. The sun was blinding, the humidity oppressive. Even after all her years in Houston, she had not gotten used to the searing summers, the air swarming with mosquitoes that increased tenfold after every rain. Here it was, early November, and the afternoon temperature was still seventy degrees. She closed her eyes and imagined Holland’s rows of brilliant tulips in the spring. She was that girl again—laughing on her bicycle with her girlfriends as they rode down green-leaved lanes, the air so crisp. Or swimming in the shocking cold of the North Sea in January when no one else dared go in. She opened her eyes and sighed. The past was the past.
    She knelt, dug a small hole in the hard ground and reached for one of the rain lilies she had bought yesterday, flowers that could withstand the blistering Texas sun, blooming only after a rainstorm. She’d bought them in honor of Rose, who had also come after a great storm, one in Nora’s life. Anneke put the plant gently into the ground, filled the hole with potting soil and tamped it firmly with the trowel. As she reached for the next flower, she heard the doorbell.
    “Verdomme,” she muttered as she took off her dirty gloves and walked inside. Deliciously cold air hit her at the door, causing her to shiver slightly. She stepped to the bassinet and bent to give Rose a kiss. Her baby scent made Anneke smile. It was even