Unraveled Read Online Free PDF

belly through a dingy white tee shirt. “Well?”
    The two lawmen walked closer to the porch. Ned stopped and looked up from under his brim. “Harriet sent for us.”
    â€œYou gonna tell her my baby brother’s dead?”
    Cody thumbed his hat back. “We need to talk to Harriet.”
    â€œYou can talk to me. I’ll tell her.”
    Ned felt his face flush. “Is she in there?”
    â€œShe is.”
    Cody jerked his head toward the house. “The kids close by?”
    â€œNaw. I took ’em over to Andy’s house. They don’t need to be here for a while.”
    Ned knew Andy and most of the huge Clay family. “You gonna invite us in?”
    Wes planted his feet as if they were about to lunge.
    The tense situation evaporated in an instant when Harriet’s weak voice came through the screen door. “Howdy, Ned, Cody. Wes, it’s all right.”
    Her brother-in-law refused to move, but Ned and Cody climbed the steps and parted around him. Harriet held the door and gave a vague wave to come in. Every window in the house was open to catch any available breeze on that still, humid morning. The air was thick and fragrant with the odor of bacon.
    â€œY’all sit.” Harriet’s dark hair was messed, as if she’d been running her fingers through it. Her eyes were red from crying.
    Neither lawman sat. Instead, they backed up to the couch, holding their hats.
    Harriet dropped heavily into a blue chair. “He’s dead for sure, ain’t he?”
    Ned nodded. “I’m sorry.”
    Instead of dissolving into tears, she ducked her head as if thinking. Her Baptist raising prompted the next question. “Had he been drinking?”
    Ned took the conversation. “We don’t know.”
    â€œWas he driving?”
    â€œWe don’t know for sure.”
    â€œI heard someone else was driving.” It was a statement. “That his car’s across the river in Juarez.”
    â€œWe don’t know that for a fact, yet. Frank was in the car with Maggie Mayfield. She was still behind the wheel, so I believe she was driving, though I don’t know how she stayed in.” Ned hesitated after realizing he was talking too much. “They went off the bend in the Lake Lamar Dam. There was some skid marks. She might have been going too fast for the curve, or maybe she tried to miss a deer or something on the dam.”
    â€œShe is…was, Frank’s secretary.” Harriet dried her eyes with a damp handkerchief. “He hired her here-while back. She may have been bringing him home. He’s worked late a lot lately, ’cause of the job. Maybe his car wouldn’t start or something.”
    The tightness in Ned’s stomach released now that he had an answer to his questions. “Well, that explains a lot.”
    She worried at a button on her blue print dress. “He’s been getting ready for the election in the fall. It takes a lot of time to lay groundwork. He’s been doing so much on his own, and even though he has what he calls his staff, he needed someone to handle the little day to day things. Maggie was supposed to take some of the pressure off and now she’s taken him with her.” She broke down in sobs.
    â€œI bet you’re right.” Cody fiddled with the brim of his hat. “They worked late last night and she was bringing him home.”
    Ned didn’t believe that, because evidence pointed toward the west, away from where they would have been going. He also hated giving the information piecemeal, but he didn’t seem to be able to stay in charge of the conversation. He wiped a film of sweat from his bald head.
    They waited in awkward silence until she composed herself. “Did he suffer much?”
    â€œI don’t know for sure.” Ned tapped his hat against his leg, a sure sign that he was ready to go. “We’ll never know.”
    â€œMy poor babies don’t