Read Beneath the Tombstone (The Tombstone Series) for Free Online Page B

wisely. “You know, money we just
happened to have that wouldn’t affect our current lifestyle… would you be okay
with starting a family?”
    Hers
was a hypothetical question, obviously, so why not give her a hypothetical
answer? “I think so,” he replied. “Like an increase in income or something?”
    “Yeah,
something like that, I guess,” Misty answered.
    “Why
you asking?”
    “Oh,
I have my reasons,” she responded, bringing her glass of tea up to her lips and
looking away. Any other time, Jason would have pursued the subject but, at the
moment, he had bigger problems on his mind. No reason to get into the “baby
discussion” if she was willing to let it lie.
    - - - - - -
    Halfway
through the meal, Jason looked up from the food he had been picking at, ran his
fingers through his hair and let out a deep sigh.
    “What’s
wrong?” Misty asked as she stopped the bite of salad she had moving towards her
mouth, leaving it hovering in mid-air.
    “Wrong?”
Jason asked after a brief pause. “Oh, um, nothing; nothing’s wrong. I’m just
full,” he responded, avoiding the truth; which was, he was having some huge
doubts about the plan he and Dr. Throckmorton had constructed.
    His
lie seemed to work. “Jason Hathaway is full?” Misty asked incredulously. “Well,
now I’ve heard everything. You never leave a bite of your Chicken… whatever it
is.”
    “Marsala,”
Jason finished for her. “Chicken Marsala.” And she was right. Most times, he
would have licked his plate clean if not in a public place – but not tonight.
Tonight, unlike most times, he felt like his stomach had gotten tired of doing
an inside job and was trying to crawl out of his throat.
    “Is
it not as good as usual?” Misty persisted with a half-smile, like she was
finding his lack of appetite hard to believe.
    “No,
it’s good,” he responded. Take grilled chicken, put it on top of a bed of
spaghetti, drench the dish with a marsala sauce swimming with sliced mushrooms,
and it made “good” the official understatement of the year.
    “Are
you sick?” she asked, half teasing, half serious.
    “No,”
Jason said forcing a chuckle, “but this isn’t death, so I can take it
with me when I go.”
    Misty
laughed and then dove off into some “you remember when” story. Jason tried to
act like he was paying attention. He nodded a lot, and said “uh-huh,” but his
heart just wasn’t in it.
    She
was off on some story from back in college when she stopped mid-sentence.
“Jason!” she yelled as she rose to her feet, pointing past him, fixated on
something over his left shoulder. “He’s got my purse!”
    It
was then that Jason’s evil plan came crashing back to him with the ferocity of
a stampede. Spinning around, he saw the fleeing man who had stolen her purse…
just like he and the doctor had planned.
    Jason
leapt to his feet and sprang into action, only a few steps behind his wife. He
had to get ahead of her. She’d grown up on a farm and survived wild animals and
two rowdy brothers. No telling what she’d do to that poor man if she caught
him. On the lower level, several would-be rescuers jumped up and tried to catch
the pretend thief as he darted between their tables. Thankfully, they all went
down without achieving their objective, tangled in the tables, chairs and one
another.
    Misty
darted around the cluster of men and chairs, but Jason leapt over the top, putting
himself in the lead. Reaching the fence that surrounded the lower level, he
hurdled it and raced along the River Walk. “Wait here! It’s not safe!” he
yelled back to Misty as he ran.
    Not
waiting to hear her response, he raced under a bridge that spanned the river
and pursued the purse-snatcher along the water’s edge. The pathway did a wide
U-turn at the headwaters of the River Walk, looping around and heading back the
other direction. Instead of following it, the thief went straight, charging up
a grassy embankment and across a street. Reaching the