Venom and the River Read Online Free PDF Page B

author’s childhood home. Ida May Turnbull. Her mother was my grandfather’s lover. The mother was a doctor, a young widow. My grandfather met her in Chicago on a business trip. They fell in love. He built the cottage for her and installed her and her daughter right under my grandmother’s nose. Story is, the girl and her mother were outcasts in town. The doctor must have had it bad for my grandfather to stay here and put her daughter through that kind of treatment from people. Well, that kind of passion sours anyone eventually. She killed herself. The daughter got her revenge on my family with those books because for years there have been fans trying to get into the place. I’ve only been in it a few times, myself. Granddad lived there after the doctor killed herself. Secluded himself for nearly thirty years. My grandmother moved down to the Palm Beach house. She had the cottage closed up after he died. She hated the sight of it, hated the thought of it.”
    “Why not just tear it down?”
    “He wrote a tricky will, Leigh. Anticipated she’d want to do that. Basic terms of the family trust are that if anything happened to the cottage or anything in it, or if any of us sold any part of this property, there’d be no money for anyone. All of it would go to Ida May or her heirs. And it’s still a lot of money. Like most things, Leigh, it’s all about money.”
    “And betrayal and love, it sounds like.”
    “No one remembers that part. It’s just the money that keeps my cousins and our children bitter.”
    “But you’re not. And that’s why you opened the cottage and put me in there.” She gently rocked the coffee cup, watching the rich brown liquid spread and recede across bone white china. Installed me like your grandfather’s mistress.
    She looked up to see his smile. Had he read her mind?
    “I simply thought that the place had been inspirational for one writer, so why not another? It’s yours for the duration. Welcome any guest you want, but I’d rather you not open it to a large group. You’ll be asked to do that, you should know. There’s some sort of gathering of these nuts every few years, and this is the year. I’ve hired security in the past to keep them from prowling around and I’ll do that again.”
    “You think that’s necessary?”
    “Only if you don’t want strange women wandering in at all hours of the day. It’s up to you. As I said, it’s yours for the duration. Just don’t burn the place down. Promise me that? The trust expires next year; after that anything can happen.”
    “I don’t smoke or light candles or fry foods. You’ve had the wiring fixed, so unless lightening hits, it’s probably safe from fire.”
    He closed his eyes and stretched out his legs. “That’s good, because if anything happens to the place before time’s up, every penny my children are counting on lands in the lap of Charlie Ewald’s donkey-ass daughter.”

6.
    The front entrance to the Pepin library was blocked with a sagging web of yellow caution tape. Stone chips littered the top step, and birds’ nests filled the gaps in the brickwork above the wide oak door. A small laminated sign screwed to a headless wooden lamppost directed visitors to a side door. Leigh examined the rust and dirt on the screws. The library must not have been a priority on the town’s budget for a long time, probably not since Andrew Carnegie was handing out money.
    The building’s glass side door was covered with flyers announcing meetings for various groups. Manga lovers, William Blake fans, knitters, nature photographers, and troll collectors apparently all used the decaying brick building as a clubhouse.
    The library’s main floor was a single large room. Leigh stood at the entrance and looked around, noting the older men reading newspapers, the two rows of occupied computer stations, several browsers in the fiction section, the short line of people waiting for help at the unmanned reference desk. “This town