Read Blue Moon for Free Online Page B

care of yourself, now."
    "You're going?"
    "I have a lot to do when I get home."
    Jenn smiled warmly. “I have to come and visit you soon. I'll call."
    She meant it, Sierra knew, just as she knew that driving the kids around and taking care of the husband and drawing up real estate contracts would put it far enough down the priority list to make it impossible.
    On her way out the door, she stopped to speak to one last man—Mark Gilpin, who'd been her husband's advisor.
    "Can I speak to you a moment?” she asked, drawing him away from the crowd.
    "So?” he asked when they were out of earshot.
    "I know what you did,” Sierra said. “Soon everyone will know."
    "I have no idea—"
    "You will.” She looked over his shoulder. “Harvey! How lucky! Gilpin just told me he was looking for you! Excuse me!"
    She was out the door and in her car long before Gilpin could follow.
    Squirm, you little bastard, she thought. Worry and wonder which of your lies have been found out.
    In a week or so, the ethics committee, the mayor's office and all the news stations would get an envelope detailing how Gilpin had set the whole thing with her husband up, from providing the slut to hiring the detectives.
    Sierra had grinned as she drove home. Gilpin wasn't the only one who could hire PIs. Her smile faded. The sooner I get home, the sooner I can start plucking those birds, the sooner I can get out of this miserable little world. The thought ran through her mind like a mantra.
    The fact was, when she got home, she put away the birds, bathed and went to bed early, so now she had to work extra-hard and catch up. The blue moon was coming, the ultimate deadline.
    Another carcass joined the first inside a large woven basket. She yanked feathers until she couldn't stand it anymore, removing each little bit of fluff, even using tweezers around the beaks and eyes. She would boil the carcasses and strip the meat. She was still trying to decide if she should eat the flesh or just use the bones.
    Some texts led her to believe the flesh itself was useless, others suggested she should consider it a part of the ritual—eating the flesh to become one with the creature. She tended to take the former with more seriousness, never having been much on poultry unless it was chopped, herbed and sauced beyond all recognition.
    She was saved from trying to guilt herself into starting on another carcass by the sound of a car pulling around the back. She put the evidence away and washed her hands, then grabbed her keys on her way outside in case she locked herself out.
    Raul was climbing the steps to the apartment above the garage. She watched him for a long moment, admiring the way he moved—he'd changed a great deal from the scrawny teenager she'd hired to mow her lawn. As he grew older, she'd given him more and more to do until she decided it was time he stayed onsite. He saw to all the odds and ends, taking out the garbage, making sure the grounds looked good, fixing things when they needed it.
    "Can I talk to you a moment?” she hailed him as he was about to unlock the door.
    He turned and looked at her, slightly off-guard. She never visited him, always called him to come to her.
    "Sure,” he said, and she ran up the steps. He opened the door warily, and she entered his abode for the very first time since he'd moved in.
    He had grown into a handsome man, with a lanky strength that made him look like a stuntman, or like he'd be more at home under a car. The mess of books, the papers covered with impossible-looking calculations and the strange little pieces of scientific equipment said otherwise.
    It also reminded her he should have started college two years ago.
    He stood, looking pleasant enough, hands in his pockets. He'd been coming to her bed on a bi-weekly basis since his eighteenth birthday, but they knew each other hardly at all.
    "Nice place,” she said.
    "I'm sorry it's such a mess."
    "Don't be silly. It's fine.” Sure, there were messy piles of paper