Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [124]
“That’s all.”
“Burt! Come on, man, get outta there. You’re gonna get me in trouble,” the guard called from the doorway.
“Get lost, Ralphie. I’ll be along in a minute.” Burt turned back to Giordano and lowered his voice. “And you’ll tell me where this money is stashed if I just keep an eye on someone for you?”
“It’s all for you, Burt-man. No one else knows it’s out there. You just gotta keep this guy honest. Make sure he does what he’s supposed to do. It’s important to me, Burt-man. It’s real important to me.”
“In that case, I’m all ears, Vince.” Burt-man knelt on one knee and leaned closer. “Tell me more. Tell me everything. . . .”
Also by Mariah Stewart:
DEAD WRONG
UNTIL DARK
THE PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER
Mercer touched the goblet and shook his head. “Crazy, isn’t it, what some people will kill for?”
It took a long moment for his words to sink in.
“Kill for?” Amanda straightened up slowly, her hands gripping the edge of the counter. “You think someone killed Derek for this?”
“Someone might have.” He gazed down at her, his expression unreadable. “Let’s start with you, Ms. Crosby.”
“Me?”
“You have to admit, you make a really good suspect.” His dark eyes studied her carefully.
“Mr. England just spent your cash cushion on a piece of stolen pottery that you’re going to have to send back, which puts you out a great deal of money.”
“That’s absurd.”
“And then there’s this little matter. . . .”
From his pocket he withdrew a cell phone. Amanda recognized it as Derek’s. Mercer scrolled down the screen, then pushed a button. He needn’t have bothered. Amanda knew full well what the message was.
“Derek, you are so dead. If you have any sense at all, you’ll stay in Italy, because the minute I see you, I am going to kill you.”
Mercer turned off the phone. “Do I need to play it again?”
Read on for an exciting preview of
DEAD WRONG
by Mariah Stewart
Published by Ballantine Books
in June 2004.
Oh, sure, I heard the little one crying. And the middle one, too. Only one I never heard was the older one, the boy. They ain’t lived here long—maybe a month or so. I never saw much of them. Oh, once in a while, I’d pass the boy on the steps. He never had much to say. No, never saw the mother bring men home. Never saw her much at all, though—don’t know when she came or went. Heard her sometimes, though. God knows she was loud enough, screaming at them kids the way she done. No, don’t know what she was doin’ to ’em to make ’em cry like that. No, never saw no social worker come around. Don’t know if the kids went to school.
Did I what? No, never called nobody about it. Wasn’t none of my business, what went on over there. Hey, I got troubles of my own. . . .
Mara Douglas rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers, an unconscious gesture she made when steeped in thought or deeply upset. Reading through the notes she’d taken while interviewing the elderly, toothless, across-the-hall neighbor of the Feehan family, she was at once immersed in the children’s situation and sick to her stomach. The refrain was all too familiar. The neighbors heard, the neighbors turned a deaf ear rather than get involved. It was none of their business what a woman did to her children, none of their business if the kids had fallen through all the cracks. In neighborhoods as poor as this, all the tenants seemed to live in their own hell. Who could worry about someone else’s?
Mara rested her elbow on the edge of the dining room table, her chin in the palm of her hand, and marveled how a child could survive such neglect and abuse and so often still defend the parent who had inflicted the physical and emotional pain.
Time after time, case after case, she’d seen the bond between parent and child tested, stretched to the very limit. Sometimes even years of the worst kind of abuse and neglect failed to fray that connection.
She turned her attention back to the case she was working on now. The mother’s rights were being challenged by the paternal grandparents, who’d had custody of the three children—ages four, seven,