Read Stone Cold for Free Online Page B

months?’ Ally exclaimed. ‘How long as this been going on, honey?’
    ‘Six months,’ she replied. ‘I never noticed all this stuff until we moved in together and got the apartment. Stephen travels so much that I offered to do his books for him, seeing as I wasn’t working a day job. I had my studies to do but I figured it made sense to help him out, and he seemed really cool about it. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t notice.’
    ‘Notice what?’ Ally pushed. ‘I take it you got further than gas receipts?’
    ‘When I looked further, after I realised it was happening most trips,’ Kathryn nodded. ‘He’d say he was off to some city, so I’d figure out roughly how much gas he’d need. He always came back with a bill that was for like, half of that much, so I tried to figure out where he was going. Turns out, depending on how much he had in the tank when he left, that he was always going the same distance away.’
    Ally’s gaze was fixed upon Kathryn’s, and she could almost hear her friend thinking hard. Revelation dawned on Ally’s face.
    ‘Oh my God you followed him, didn’t you?’
    ‘Can you blame me? I had to know.’
    ‘Where was he going?’ Ally asked, feigning dispassionate concern but leaning closer to Kathryn with every passing moment.
    ‘The city,’ she replied, ‘just the other side. I checked the mileage in his car too, and that tallies with the gas used in every trip he’s made in the last year.’
    ‘The airport is near the city,’ Ally frowned. ‘Maybe he flew the rest of the way each time?’
    ‘No parking fees,’ Kathryn explained, ‘and no tickets. He would have claimed the travel expenses back just like everybody else.’
    Ally frowned again, as though uncertain. ‘Didn’t he used to call you sometimes from other places though?’
    Kathryn nodded. ‘I get calls from time to time. He was always so sweet, always asking how I was. I guess I was so enamoured that he bothered to stay in touch all the time that it never crossed my mind to wonder about where he was calling from. When it did I traced the number using the Internet. It’s surprising, to be honest, how easily you can track such things down these days.’
    ‘Where was he calling from? The city?’
    ‘No, that’s the thing, he was often calling from hundreds of miles away.’
    Ally’s creased features went blank as she stared at Kathryn. ‘Okay, honey, you’re going to have to run this by me again because I’m not following here.’
    Kathryn smiled, and this time she held Ally’s hand. ‘It’s not important right now, okay? And I followed him, remember? He didn’t go to the airport.’
    ‘Where did he go?’
    Kathryn sighed.
    ‘I’ll tell you about it later. Right now I really need you to do something for me.’
    Ally appeared not to have heard Kathryn’s response. ‘You can’t tell me all of that and then leave me hanging like this!’
    ‘I’ll tell you all I can, as soon as I can, okay?’ Kathryn insisted, squeezing her friend’s hand a little tighter. ‘Right now I’m in the middle of something.’
    ‘Your first day at your new job!’ Ally gasped, horrified. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t ask about it and…’
    ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Kathryn soothed her. ‘I didn’t exactly give you much of a chance, asking you here on such short notice.’
    ‘Why did you ask me here? And what do you want me to do?’
    Kathryn felt her jaw tighten as fresh resolve blossomed inside her.
    ‘I’m going to see just what Stephen’s been up to,’ she replied, ‘and I’m going to make sure that he pays for what he’s done. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone since we got together, earning my diploma, looking after the apartment and his damned books, trying to keep everything in order while he’s been seeing some other damned woman behind my back!’
    Ally’s concern melted into delight. ‘You naughty bloody cow! What are you going to do to him?’
    ‘One thing at a time,’ Kathryn said. ‘I