Read The Devil To Pay (Hennessey.) for Free Online Page B

she had cleaned and cooked in. The house with the staircase she had carried her mother up when she had been out of it with the drink.
    Daniel had not been interested in Adela’s future either, just the money he could use for his gambling and drinking. Not a single penny did they give her. Three months later that had not mattered one iota, not financially anyway, but emotionally it had hurt very much that her mother resented, even hated her enough to exclude her from her will.  Adela shook her head and stood up abruptly. Well that was over now, she was here, free and rich, if not content and happy and at peace. She blinked rapidly trying to clear her mind of thoughts of her mother and the family who cared so little for her. After all, free and rich wasn’t a bad start was it?
    She decided to read for a while out on the little porch at the front of the cabin. She picked up her book, a Sam Smith novel in which the hero Jake Keecher was about to save the girl, the day, and ultimately the whole wide world, or die trying.  
    Adela loved crime or suspense novels, she especially liked Sam Smith. But her favourite was Taylor Barton’s Fenn Llewellyn the Private Investigator. He was such a sweet man, romantic and very funny yet strong and tough. She wished she could meet someone like him, but for now she lived in her fantasy world of private eyes and F.B.I agents and other such romantic heroes. Maybe because the men in them asked nothing of her and were therefore safe.
    She read for a few hours then put her book to one side very satisfied with the conclusion, there went Keecher off to save the world again and if his luck was in, which it usually was, sleep with pretty women. She went indoors and switched up the A.C; it had become very hot indeed now, then decided to take a nap before getting ready for tonight. She was going to a theatre show in Mobile, they were putting on a comedy play and she was looking forward to it.
    She had only ever been to the theatre twice in her life, one, because she could not leave her mother at night, that’s when she was at her worst. Two, she never had anyone to go with and was not confident enough to go by herself. Same with the cinema too, not that she was overly fond of the cinema, it reminded her too much of Connor Murphy and that awful groping and panting and pleading then anger as she kept removing his hand from down her blouse or from up her skirt. He had called her a tease then a bitch then a dyke. At fifteen she had not known what a dyke was, and wondered what a wall that kept water from flooding the land had to do with letting him know she did not want to be groped.
    She lay on the bed and thought about her encounter with Mr. Jonas Lando today. What a strange man he was. And that’s when she decided, that come hell or high water, she would get him to smile at least once before she left Alabama…or die trying.
     
     
     
     
      CHAPTER 3.
     
    Adele awoke an hour or so later, stretched and looked at her watch it read 5.30. The play began at 8.00clock, plenty of time to get ready and make her way to the bus stop. She could of course easily afford a taxi but she liked the bus, she liked hearing the other passengers talking to each other in that soft musical accent.
    She put a lasagne in the microwave which she ate with salad and cold new potatoes.
    Then showered and made up her face. She was still new to this make- up thing. She had had very little opportunity to wear it; she never went anywhere, except to work and what was the point wearing make-up to clean toilets and sweep floors?
    So she had worn make -up and a nice dress only a handful of times. For instance at Sally and David’s wedding where everyone had ignored her anyway, partly because she had been sitting with her mother and no one wanted to approach her, even David and Sally.
    At 7.30 the happy couple had asked her to take her mother home. The latter had been on the brink of causing a scene but David had promised they would