While She Was Out Read Online Free PDF Page A

won’t do nothing. Just talk.”
    â€œOkay.” Why not, she thought. Sooner or later, he’ll find his way in here and put the gun in my mouth and- Della stood up. -but maybe, just maybe- Agony laced through her knees.
    Chuckie cocked his head, staring her way. “Leave the tools.” “I already did. The one I didn’t use.”
    â€œYeah,” said Chuckie. “The ones you used, you used real good.” He lowered the beam of the flashlight. “Here you go. I don’t want you stumbling and falling and maybe breaking your neck.”
    Della stepped around the deadfall and slowly walked toward him. His hands were at his sides. She couldn’t see if he was holding the gun. She stopped when she was a few feet away.
    â€œHell of a night, huh?” said Chuckie. “It’ll be really good to go inside where it’s warm and get some coffee.” He held the flashlight so that the beam speared into the sky between them.
    Della could make out his thin, pain-pinched features. She imagined he could see hers. “I was only going out to the mall for a few things,” she said.
    Chuckie laughed. “Shit happens.”
    â€œWhat now?” Della said.
    â€œTime for the horror show.” His teeth showed ferally as his lips drew back in a smile. “Guess maybe I sort of fibbed.” He brought up his hand, glinting of metal.
    â€œThat’s what I thought,” she said, feeling a cold and distant sense of loss. “Huey, there, going to help?” She nodded to point past his shoulder.
    â€œHuey?” Chuckie looked puzzled just for a second as he glanced to the side. “Huey’s-”
    Della leapt with all the spring left in her legs. Her fingers closed around his wrist and the hand with the gun. “Christ!” Chuckie screamed, as her shoulder crashed against the spongy place where his broken collarbone pushed out against the skin.
    They tumbled on the December ground, Chuckie underneath, Della wrapping her legs around him as though pulling a lover tight. She burrowed her chin into the area of his collarbone and he screamed again. Kenneth had always joked about the sharpness of her chin.
    The gun went off. The flash was blinding, the report hurt her ears. Wet snow plumped down from the overhanging pine branches, a large chunk plopping into Chuckie’s wide-open mouth. He startedto choke.
    Then the pistol was in Della’s hands. She pulled back from him,
getting
to her feet, back-pedaling furiously to get out of his reach. She stared down at him along the blued-steel barrel. The pirate captain struggled to his knees.
    â€œBack to the original deal,” he said. “Okay?”
    I wish, she almost said. Della pulled the trigger. Again. And again.
    â€œWhere the hell have you been?” said Kenneth as she closed the front door behind her. “You’ve been gone for close to three hours.” He inspected her more closely. “Della, honey, are you all right?”
    â€œDon’t call me that,” she said. “Please.” She had hoped she would look better, more normal. Unruffled. Once Della had pulled the Subaru up to the drive beside the house, she had spent several minutes using spit and Kleenex trying to fix her mascara. Such makeup as she’d had along was in her handbag, and she had no idea where that was. Probably the police had it; three cruisers with lights flashing had passed her, going the other way, as she was driving north of Southeast Plaza.
    â€œYour clothes.” Kenneth gestured. He stood where he was.
    Della looked down at herself. She’d tried to wash off the mud, using snow and a rag from the trunk. There was blood too, some of it Chuckie’s, the rest doubtless from Vinh and Tomas.
    â€œHoney, was there an accident?”
    She had looked at the driver’s side of the Subaru for along minute after getting home. At least the car drove; it must just have been flooded before. But