Read Past Malice for Free Online

usual. I kissed him again, trying to figure out what it was.
    “Hey sweetie, where you been?”
    He knew what I meant. “We got pizza down by the supermarket.”
    That’s what I tasted: sausage. “And you didn’t wait for me?”
    “We didn’t know how long you’d be.” Bucky dug a couple of plastic-handled shopping bags out of the back of the pickup.
    “Still.” I grabbed a couple of bags, and we walked up to the house.
    “Next time,” Brian said. He looked down at the side steps. “Bogus. Squirrel tartare.”
    “I know. Quasi left it as a booby-trap for me.”
    “You don’t understand him. He’s just a big muffin,” Bucky said, closing the kitchen door with her foot.
    “You can say that, you and Brian are the only ones who can get near him.” I began unloading the groceries onto the counter, handing things to Bucky to put in the fridge. “When God was making nasty, scary animals, he came up with Quasi, but decided that cat was too damned mean. So then he came up with the Tasmanian Devil and thought it was much sweeter.”
    Bucky frowned, trying to make room amid the leftovers. “Naw. He’s just a little, you know, territorial.”
    “Did you bring your stethoscope with you? I’d love it if you could check him out.” Quasi and I had opposing ideas about going to the vet but had come to a compromise in the past year when he’d grown beyond even Brian’s ability to wrestle him into a carrier: I wouldn’t make him go to the vetand he wouldn’t try to tear my spleen out. We settled on having Bucky check him out and give him his shots when she came up to visit. “I know you’re on vacation and all….”
    “Sure, but I keep telling you: The day he lets you take him to your real vet, you’ll know he’s really ill.”
    “And that’s your considered professional—” I went to pass Bucky the milk and suddenly a small bottle of water went whizzing past my face: Bucky had thrown it behind her without even looking. “Hey!”
    I looked over and Brian had snagged the bottle handily. Neither of them had said a word to the other. “Hey,” I repeated. “Someone could have gotten hurt!”
    “You want some water, Em?” my sister asked.
    “No…but take it easy, will you? We just patched up the walls in here and I want one room without big, gaping holes in it.”
    “Relax.” Bucky opened her water. “You always worry too much.”
    She knows I hate being told to relax.
    Brian drank some of his water and then came over to rub my shoulders. “Have you eaten?”
    I was in no mood to be mollified. “No. I was waiting for you guys.”
    “Good thing I brought this for you then.” He pulled out a small box from the last of the bags, marked Mario’s. I could smell the sausage and snatched it away from him, all forgiven. “Let’s go sit on the porch then?”
    The porch was really the living room, this summer. Bucky finished in the fridge and then ran past me, so that she could claim a seat on the swinging bench. Brian sat down next to her and I found myself annoyed with both of them again. Then Brian reached over and poked Bucky in the side, and said, “Shift it over to the steps, kiddo. I want to sit next to your sister.”
    My storm clouds evaporated and I sat down next to Brian, who pulled me closer. Bucky made a face and sat on the stairs.
    “How’d the meeting go?”
    “Oh.” I stopped smiling and felt my shoulders slump. “Okay.” I told them about my presentation, that it had gone well, and then paused.
    “What else?” Brian nudged me.
    “Something happened to one of the board members. She was hit by a car.” I fished a piece of onion from the bottom of the box.
    “What?”
    “Holy snappers!” Bucky gaped, then sat back and stared at the birds hopping around the field on the opposite side of the street.
    I gave them a brief account of what I knew. That little furrow between Brian’s eyebrows got deeper. “It doesn’t sound like it’s a good time to be on the Stone Harbor