Read Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel for Free Online

“a broken down piece of shit, heavy on the shit.”
    The house, tumbling-down barn, and storm-damaged silo were located at the end of a quarter-mile-long gravel track. Set on six acres crowded with mature hardwood trees and a half-acre pond that had purportedly been stocked with catfish and bass, the three-bedroom farmhouse had just turned one hundred years old. It had looked peaceful and quaint in the brochure. All semblance of drive-up appeal ended the instant he saw the place up close and personal.
    The house looked as if it had earned each of those one hundred birthdays the hard way, weathering blizzards and hailstorms and blazing sun without the benefit of maintenance. The paint had long since weathered to gray and the siding had rotted completely through in places. Tomasetti was pretty sure those were yellow jackets swarming out of that two-inch gap near the foundation. The rest of the exterior, including the eaves and trim, would need to be scraped, sanded, primed, and painted—all of which wasn’t cheap.
    At one time the windows had been adorned with slatted wood shutters. All but two lay in pieces on the ground, forgotten and left to rot in the knee-high weeds. The remaining shutters hung from rusty hinges at cockeyed angles, creaking in the breeze and giving the house the unbalanced appearance of a listing ship. The wrap-around porch had once been a focal point, but the wood planks sagged now, so that the house seemed to grin when you came up the lane. Not the dazzling smile of some proud patriarch looking out over his domain, but the lopsided, toothless grin of an old drunk, heavy on the drunk.
    Tomasetti had almost turned around and left. But despite its state of disrepair, there was something appealing about the place. His Realtor had twittered on about the “astounding potential” and the “opportunity for investment” and reminded him that the place was “in foreclosure” and would go for a steal. Somehow, he’d persuaded Tomasetti to venture inside.
    The house was small—by Ohio farmhouse standards, anyway—with just under three thousand square feet. The bedrooms and one of the two bathrooms were located on the second level; the living areas and second bath were downstairs. Not a bad floor plan considering the place had been built back when Woodrow Wilson was president and the Great War had yet to begin.
    The age of the house was reflected in the interior, too, but the dilapidation was interspersed with unexpected flashes of character and the kind of architecture rarely seen in today’s homes. Tall, narrow windows ensconced in woodwork adorned every external wall, ushering in a flourish of natural light. The ceilings were twelve feet high with intricate crown molding. A wide, arched doorway separated the formal dining room from the living area. The kitchen was “all original”—a term Tomasetti deemed interchangeable with “needs gutting and replacing.” A peek beneath the threadbare olive-green carpeting revealed a gold mine of gleaming oak that had never seen the light of day. Tomasetti didn’t have an eye for design or color. The thing he did have an eye for was potential and the old house brimmed with it.
    Never a pushover, he’d left his Realtor standing in the driveway looking decidedly depressed—perhaps due to the “place is a dump” comment he’d uttered as they parted ways. He went back to his office in Richfield to immerse himself in work, which was an open case involving the unidentified remains of a Jane Doe found in Cortland, Ohio—and forget all about that dusty old farmhouse.
    But he couldn’t get it out of his head, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Tomasetti was a city slicker from the word go. He preferred concrete over cornfields and the din of horns and gunned engines over the bawling of calves or spring peepers. He loved the hustle and bustle of downtown. The cultural centers and the bars and restaurants tucked away in unexpected places. He even liked the