Read Shallow Grave-J Collins 3 for Free Online

serving tray. It felt normal until I glanced over and saw a mini-Ben staring at me.
    My hands shook. Kevin gently took the tray.
    Jericho slid me a sly smile and proceeded to put eleven mini-marshmallows in his cup.
    Cheeky little thing.
    We didn’t bother to fi ll the empty air with mindless chatter.
    Once Jericho had slurped the last glob of chocolate and stuff ed eight more marshmallows in his mouth, I decided I’d waited long enough. “Do you let him watch cartoons?”
    “Sometimes. Why?”
    “Because we need to talk and it might be easier if he was otherwise occupied.”
    “Mama, I wanna watch ’toons!”
    Her nervous gaze fl icked to the door.
    “Th
    e TV’s in the living room. You can put your chair in the doorway, so you can keep an eye on him if you’d like,” I added as an incentive.
    Kevin helped her get Jericho situated. I stayed in the kitchen, adding a healthy shot of peppermint schnapps to 41

    my hot chocolate. I fi red up a smoke. For the briefest moment, the taste combo brought me back to high school.
    Abita returned and primly sat in the same chair she’d vacated.
    I’d cracked the kitchen window and wiggled my backside into the countertop. I was too restless to sit.
    Pacing irritated the shit out of me even when I did it.
    “How long have you two been partners?” Abita asked.
    “About seven months.”
    She frowned at Kevin. “But, you said he knew Ben.
    How, if you’ve only been together a short time?”
    Kevin laughed. I choked on an exhale.
    “Julie and I are business partners. But we’ve been friends since we were twelve, so I knew Ben.”
    “Oh.” Abita blushed. “Sorry. When you said ‘partners’ I assumed . . .”
    “Natural mistake,” he assured her.
    An assumption most people made. In years past we went out of our way to convince skeptics we really were just friends. But in the last few months, we’d stopped the denial. Kevin and I had a long-term intimacy that defi es explanation. If our relationship confused the hell out of us, why should we bother to clarify it for others?
    “What is your business?”
    “We’re private investigators.”
    She blinked. A garbled phrase, which sounded sus-42

    piciously like foreign cuss words, tumbled out of her mouth as she made a circle on her forehead.
    “Excuse me? What did you say?”
    “It’s a Hopi saying. Loosely translated, it means,
    ‘Coincidence is fate in disguise’.”
    I shivered.
    “About six months ago I thought about hiring a PI to fi nd you, Julie.”
    “Is that how you found her?” Kevin asked.
    “No.” She looked at me. “Th
    e casino explosion
    in South Dakota was big news in the Indian newspapers across the country, including Arizona. I recognized your name. Ben mentioned you often enough, but he’d said you lived in Minneapolis and I didn’t know your married name. So it kinda threw me that you hadn’t changed it.”
    I hadn’t taken my ex-husband’s name. Julie Tooley?
    Eww. No thanks.
    Abita added. “So I convinced myself I wouldn’t be able to fi nd you even if I tried.”
    I sucked in a deep drag. Blew it out. Decided to push her a little to see if she’d wobble. “You could’ve gotten in touch with me through our father at any point.
    His name hasn’t changed.”
    “I know.” She glanced at her hands, tidily folded in her lap, and clammed up.
    43

    Shit.
    Kevin said, “I know Julie has a million questions, so why don’t we start with the most obvious one? How did you meet Ben?”
    Th
    ank God Kevin was here. He’d keep me focused and if things turned ugly, he’d stop me from doing something rash. He’d also hold me up without me having to ask.
    “I met him in our village when he fi rst visited my uncle.” She cleared her throat. “I should explain that our village is open to tourists who want to come and have a real experience with the Hopi people. We’re still primitive as far as most modern tribes go. Anyway, we’ve got crafting areas and a cultural center. But visitors