Read Killer: An Alex Delaware Novel for Free Online

Can’t get a man of her own because she’s too damn busy making money and bossing everyone around so now she wants what’s mine!”
    “You two never got along.”
    “Never—no, that’s not true, sometimes when we were kids we wereokay with each other. I mean it’s not like we were kissy-kiss or tight. But we let each other be. Never hit each other. Never really fought.”
    “Constance is seven years older.”
    “How’d you—oh, yeah, the files. That’s right, seven, almost eight so it’s not like we were hanging out. There’s our brother in between, even though he was a boy I hung out more with him. Not like Connie, she never hung around with anyone.”
    “A loner.”
    “Exactly! You hit it on the nose, Dr. Delaware, she’s a loner, doesn’t get people, doesn’t even like people, she’s totally more into numbers. Math, science, that kind of thing, she always had her head in the books when Daddy would let her.”
    “Daddy didn’t like books?”
    “Daddy didn’t like anything when he drank. One beer, he’s smiling, two, he’s still smiling. Three, he gets quiet. By the time six, seven, eight rolls around he’s all red in the face and his shoulders bunch up and you’d better not be in his pathway or you’re gonna get rolled over on. Like one of those things they use to flatten the tar when they build roads.”
    “Steamroller.”
    “Steamroller, exactly. Not hitting or anything but still looking scary and yelling and breaking stuff. Daddy gets to rolling, you stay out of his way. So, yeah, if Connie was concentrating on a library book and he happened to roll into our room and she was at the desk and he fixed it upon himself to not like that, that book would turn into confetti. And what makes it crazier is he liked to read.”
    “Sounds frightening.”
    “It was,” she agreed. “It was real frightening but you learn to avoid it, you know?”
    “Where was your mother when all this was happening?”
    “Quiet drunk. She’d go under quicker than Daddy and just fall asleep.”
    “You and Connie had a challenging childhood.”
    “Me and Connie and Connor—he was in between us, Connor learned to be a real good runner because Daddy would yell at him the most. He ran in high school and college. Long distance, he won awards, could go for miles.”
    “Where does Connor live?”
    “Up north,” she said. “He’s got a nice family.”
    “When your parents weren’t drunk, what were they like?”
    “Working,” she said. “Mommy secretaried at a trucking company and Daddy drove one of their semis.”
    “So he was gone a lot.”
    “Thank God.”
    “Did he treat you and Connie differently?”
    “Hmm … I’d have to say yes. Her, there’d be books turned into confetti. Me—truthfully I wasn’t one for books, reading wasn’t my favorite thing, friends were—having a social life. So there was no confetti.”
    “Did he take out his anger differently with you?”
    “Not really. Truthfully, he didn’t do much to me because I’d have to say he liked me the best. Because he’d tell me that. When he was sober. ‘Ree, you’re the pretty one, you make sure you stay pretty so you can get married. Connie, she’s just gonna bury her nose in a book and make like she’s smarter than everyone, no man will want that.’ ”
    “So Connie had it the roughest.”
    “If she’d been friendlier, it could’ve been better for her.”
    “Friendlier to your father?”
    “To him, to everyone—Dr. Delaware, I have to tell you: That girl was weaned on a sour pickle—that’s what Mommy always said. Never smiled, always off to herself, pretending to ignore you when you said something. It’s like she thought she was better than everyone else.”
    “Nose in a book.”
    “In the library more than she was at home. That meant I had to doextra chores. If Daddy and Mommy were sober, they’d probably gone after her to make her do her chores.”
    “They were drunk so Connie got to do what she