Read The Blood Red Indian Summer for Free Online Page B

a powdered donut, munching on it as they broke free of the traffic on Turkey Neck and started cruising up Old Shore Road toward the Historic District. “Justy gave me the job as a favor to June. He knows I really need the money to help cover my tuition. Although he still owes me like a thousand bucks from the last spots we filmed. Mitch, I swear he’s never put a move on me. Not that he’d ever get anywhere. I mean, God, he’s fifty-five years old. He smells like cheese .”
    “Do you get along okay with Bonita?”
    “I guess. She’s not really my kind of person. She’s a total taker. She broke up Justy’s marriage to June’s mom, you know.”
    “Justy had a little something to do with that.”
    “June thinks Bonita took advantage of him. Justy tries to come across as all take-charge but he’s really just a horny, clueless trog who drinks too much. Bonita sized him up right away and moved in for the kill. Or so June thinks. He doesn’t like her very much.”
    “You say Justy owes you money. What’s up with that?”
    “I think he’s having cash flow problems. People aren’t buying cars like they used to. There was nobody around the place last time I was there.”
    “Do you think that’s why June is suddenly so anxious to leave—because Bond’s Auto Mall is circling the drain?”
    “Mitch, I really wish I knew. But I don’t.” Callie sighed woefully. “Are you going to eat that last donut?”

C HAPTER 3
    “I MAY NOT BE a football star but I have rights, too,” proclaimed Stewart Plotka, who was holding an impromptu news conference on the shoulder of the road just outside Tyrone Grantham’s driveway. The camera crews practically engulfed him. “I’m here for some justice. And I’m staying here until I get it.”
    Plotka was short, tubby and on the whiny side. As photo-op proof of how grievously he’d been injured by Da Beast he wore a highly theatrical black eye patch over his left eye and a splint around his right hand. Picture the world’s shlumpiest pirate and that was Stewart Plotka. The man looked about as dashing as a baked apple standing out there in the hot sun in his sweat-stained knit shirt and rumpled Dockers. His slickly tailored power lawyer, Andrea Halperin, towered over him in her stiletto heels.
    Des stood there watching them, fuming. She was pissed at herself for letting Bob Paffin move her around. Not that the old weasel had left her a way out. He knew how to get ugly when he needed to. And, with a rich resident like Justy Bond climbing up his ass, he needed to.
    “I have a right to be here,” Plotka went on. The news crews were pretty much blocking the entire road now. The trooper on traffic detail—a big, empty uniform—had lost control of the situation. “And I’m staying here until Tyrone Grantham owns up to what he did to Katie O’Brien.”
    Des strolled on over and said, “I hope you don’t mean here here, Mr. Plotka. Because you’re impeding the flow of traffic.”
    “Mr. Plotka has a legal right to speak,” asserted Andrea Halperin, who had sleek auburn hair and an intensely self-important air about her. “We’re on public property.”
    “And I work for the public. I’m Resident Trooper Desiree Mitry and I’m informing you that you are creating a safety hazard. Please move along.”
    “My client is not going anywhere. He has taken up residence at the Saybrook Point Inn and he intends to show up here each and every day until Mr. Tyrone Grantham owns up to what he’s done.”
    “I said please move along.” Des kept her voice calm for the cameras. If she wasn’t careful it could bottom out on her and she could come across like Barry White on a bad hair day. “Move along.”
    Andrea Halperin knew how to get her client on TV. She also knew when to cut and run. She steered Plotka toward a black Mercedes that was double-parked on the shoulder of the road. They climbed in and sped away, Andrea behind the wheel. The media throng promptly began shouting