Read An Eye for Murder for Free Online Page B

later, all that pent-up frustration is leaching out of guys like him. Too bad it hasn’t made him less obnoxious.
    A gloomy fog hung over the field, and slivers of cold rain stung my face. The ground was partially frozen, but chunks of earth had broken free and were starting to ooze mud. I had brought a thermos of coffee, but my fingers were numb by the end of the quarter.
    Rachel played halfback. After a particularly fierce encounter she stole the ball and passed it to a forward, who dribbled it down the field and scored. Our side erupted in cheers. I whooped along with the others, all thoughts of unseemly parental behavior forgotten. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder.
    I turned, instantly unnerved by the pleasurable shiver that ran through me. Damn it. I wish my ex-husband didn’t look so much like Kevin Costner. I’m doomed to a Pavlovian response for the rest of my life. I smiled.
    Barry returned the smile with the one that says, I know I look like a million bucks . And he did look good in his fleece vest, turtleneck, jeans, and work boots. In fact, his only physical imperfection is his nose, too long and narrow. But even that keeps him from being too pretty.
    “How’s she doing?” He turned toward the field.
    “She just made an incredible play.” I described it. “That’s my girl.”
    I ignored the proprietary vanity. “Where are you going after the game?”
    “We’ll probably head back to my place.”
    “No big plans?”
    Barry shrugged. I shifted my feet. Usually he can’t wait to impress me with the weekend marathon he’s planned for Rachel, as if we’re competing for her affection, and the winner is whoever has exhausted her most by Sunday night. “What about you?”
    “I’m going down to Dad’s.”
    “Oh.”
    I peered at him. “Are you okay?”
    “Fine.” His eyes darted from one goalie to the other.
    I wrapped my hands around the lukewarm thermos. He always was a lousy liar. Then, “There is something I need to talk to you about.”
    Prickles shot up my spine. I’d heard rumors he was seeing someone. I tried to play it cool. “Shoot.”
    “I may not be able to meet Rachel’s child support payments for a while.”
    Here it comes. “Why not?”
    “I’m—I’m temporarily short of cash.”
    I looked past him, expecting to hear about weddings, condos, and honeymoons, but cheers on the other side of the field distracted me. The other team scored a goal. A collective sigh went up from our side. Barry studied the ground.
    “What’s going on?”
    He hesitated. “One of my stocks fell out of bed.”
    I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or incensed. “I didn’t know you were trading again.” Before we broke up, we’d opened an account to trade online. A minor league version of day trading, it wasn’t a lot of money, but the therapist suggested it was something we could do together. We closed the account and divided the assets when we split up. “How much?”
    Another hesitation. “About a hundred.”
    “Grand?” My voice spiked. The noise from the sidelines was suddenly hollow, as if it was being funneled through an empty tube.
    “It’s a high-tech incubator,” he went on. “They buy pieces of technology start-ups. But it wasn’t their fault,” he said defensively. “It’s a good VC firm. I did a lot of research on it, and the fundamentals are there. It’s just this lousy market. They’re switching over to bricks and mortar. It’ll come back. ”
    The little girls on the field bobbed and weaved like buoys in a muddy sea. “Come back? What are you saying, Barry?”
    “It’s bottomed out. It’s gonna turn around, and I want to be there when it does.”
    “Hold on. You’ve just lost a hundred thousand dollars, you can’t make child support payments, and you’re buying more stock?”
    His jaw worked. “Now’s the time to get in. Look, Ellie. You can get by for a couple of months. I’ll make it up to you.”
    “Barry, aren’t you forgetting something? What if