Read Grave Intentions for Free Online Page A

light-headed to argue. “As soon as we get back, you’re taking it to a shelter.”
     
    After a grueling day at work, Sarah trudged up the stairwell leading to her apartment. Contaminants in the lab had ruined a week’s worth of preparations, forcing her to start the tests over from scratch. Then Angelo had caught wind of the contamination problems and things went right down the dumper. Add in the fun of driving past the horde of protesters on her way out, and you had all the ingredients for a two-drink-minimum evening.
    The handles of the plastic grocery bags dug into her hands as she struggled to fit the key into the lock and push the door open. She nudged the door shut with her hip and rushed to the kitchen, letting out a sigh of relief when she dumped her purse and the bags onto the counter.
    Once everything was stored away, she went to the bedroom to change out of her work clothes and into something more casual. She settled on her favorite pair of blue cotton pajama bottoms and a gauzy pink tank top. Feeling relaxed and much more comfortable, she went back to the kitchen, slapped a frozen dinner in the microwave, and poured a glass of wine.
    What a day, she thought as she took a long sip and moved out to the balcony. Angelo had been in fine form after hearing about the contamination, nit-picking about everything from her choice of dye for the cell cultures to the way she logged results into the database. Another day like today and she might snap like a stressed-out postal worker.
    She closed the sliding glass door behind her and stretched out on the plastic Adirondack chair. After being stuck indoors for ten hours, she found the heat and humidity to be a welcome change of pace. She took another sip and closed her tired eyes, relishing the relative calm of early evening.
    Inside, the phone rang. Not feeling particularly social, she chose to let the answering machine do its thing. Still, she cracked the door open so she could listen.
    “Sarah?” rang out the familiar voice through the answering machine speaker. “Sarah, are you there? It’s Angelo.”
    Crap. How did he get this number? She’d changed it when she moved, making a point of giving the new number to only a select few she trusted not to share.
    “I called to apologize for being so difficult today,” Angelo continued, sounding as smarmy as usual. Funny, at first she’d found him charismatic. Then she got to know him and her assessment changed dramatically. Now she looked past the charm and saw the true man that lay beneath, a brilliant mind with the morals of an alley cat. “You know how I get when I’m under stress.” He chuckled, and Sarah wanted to reach through the receiver and choke him. “Anyway, I want to make it up to you. How about dinner and drinks tonight? My treat. Give me a call when you get in, okay?”
    “Like hell,” she said under her breath. Not even if it meant losing her job and working the graveyard shift at the Gas ’N Grub.
    After mentally running through the short list of people with her new number, she picked up the phone and began dialing.
    “Did you give Angelo my new number?” she asked as soon as Jackie picked up.
    “I’m sorry, honey,” Jackie said, her voice tinged with sympathy. “But you know how he is. Once he realized you changed your number, he was like a dog with a bone trying to get the new one. And when he found out I had it, he started up about how he needed it in case of an emergency, and when that didn’t work, he made it real clear he’d have my job if I didn’t cough it up.”
    Sarah took another sip of her wine, but it didn’t taste so sweet anymore. Cradling the phone between her ear and her shoulder, she stepped to the kitchen and rooted through the drawers for a funnel. She found one in the back of her junk drawer and used it to pour the wine back into the bottle. No sense in wasting good Riesling, after all. “Please don’t tell me you gave him my new address. I haven’t even finished