Read Blood and Ashes for Free Online

flee back to Florida. It was the self-doubt; that I’d be unable to do anything to help. Subconsciously I’d killed those two mugs to prove something to myself. But at what price? Had it made a murderer of me? A bully? The very thing that I’d always despised?
    I studied Millie, and decided. No. At the back of my mind I’d seen the men as a threat to her, and to her sister’s children.
    ‘Do you want more coffee?’
    Millie reached out for the mug that I’d drained. I hadn’t been conscious of finishing it, or that I now held the empty mug to my lips. I handed it over. ‘I’d appreciate it.’
    ‘Breakfast? I could cook something for you.’
    ‘Coffee will be fine.’
    ‘You should eat.’
    I should, I might need the strength. But I wasn’t sure that I could hold anything down for long. ‘Just coffee . . . please.’
    Millie swung round, heading out the room.
    ‘Millie.’
    She turned back. Her mouth was pinched and there were two red spots on her cheeks. I said, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come when your father first asked. I truly am.’
    ‘I’ll get your coffee.’
    Following her to the kitchen would serve no purpose. Millie’s offer to cook breakfast was her way of breaking down the barrier her sister’s death had placed between us. By my refusal I’d done nothing to help the matter. Going in there would only make things more awkward. When she came back with the second coffee there would be an opportunity to try again.
    Turning back to the window, I peered across the green towards the main road into town. There was movement now, people finally bracing themselves against the elements to get on with their lives. Kids were hanging out by the green, waiting to be picked up for school. On my walk through town last night I’d noticed a school house, but it must cater only for the younger children. These older ones were probably bussed to a high school in the larger neighbouring town of Hertford. The college-age kids maybe only returned to town during holidays, if they returned at all. There didn’t seem much here to hold them; other than the family businesses and occasional chain store I hadn’t noted much else in the way of industry.
    Kids were pretty much the same wherever I travelled. Fashions in clothing and hairstyles, the colour of their skin, might be different, but the group fooling around as they waited for the school bus could have been standing on any street corner in the western world. Pennsylvanian kids weren’t so different from those I’d been familiar with back home in the UK.
    The two standing by the wishing well were different though.
    Not only in appearance but by the intensity with which they stared back at me through the window.
    It was a boy who, when I studied his smooth features and gangly frame, didn’t look like he’d made twenty years old yet. He was wearing jeans and boots and a black leather jacket emblazoned with patches and flags. He’d an archaic quiff hairstyle, greased and coiffed to Elvis perfection. The girl with him looked older. She had a retro look about her too. But she was more punk rocker than greaser. She had on a tartan mini that was strategically frayed around the hem, over bright yellow stockings and pink shoes. A white T-shirt daubed with splashes of colour was only partially hidden by the leather jacket she’d decorated with studs and chains. Another thin chain looped from her right nostril to her right earlobe, and her platinum hair was spiked high and then tipped with pink.
    I stepped closer to the window, meeting their gaze. The boy and girl shared a glance. The girl said something and the boy sneered at me before they turned and walked unhurriedly across the green.
    They look dangerous. Go after them, Hunter. Why not kill them as well?
    I sighed and turned back to the room, putting the kids out of my mind. Don was walking in ahead of Millie and he was clutching a steaming mug similar to the two she carried. He also had the police file he’d shown me