“Hello, Elizabeth,” I said.
Then I added, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
“Actually,” Elizabeth Riggs replied with that crinkle-eyed smile of hers, “you just walked into mine.”
She was right, actually, so I didn’t argue the point. Instead I said, “This is a long way from Chicago.”
“It’s a long way from everywhere.”
A long way indeed. I thought of the panic I felt when I held her driver’s license in my trembling hand, the sheer, unadulterated relief when I found her alive in the lobby of the Copley Plaza hotel, the empty sadness when I learned she had understandably fled town.
I glanced back at Mongillo, who had this stupid look on his big face as he looked back at me, and I thought of his simple request: Surprise me. I thought too of Elizabeth’s spot-on analysis in the San Francisco airport that night, that the dead keep on dying in my life.
“Can I help you?” the bartender asked. He was a big suave native guy with biceps roughly the size of my thighs.
I said, “I think it’s time I helped myself.”
With that, I took Elizabeth by the hand. She stood and followed me, surprised and delighted at the same time, followed me across the tile floor, across the sandy beach, and into the shallow surf, where the warm waves rolled against our legs.
I leaned in and kissed her on the lips, and she kissed me back. I pulled away, just a few inches, and said, “Pittsburgh may not be so bad.”
She kissed me again, neither long nor hard, but it was perfect. “Neither’s Hawaii,” she whispered. “It’s just a matter of paying attention to who’s around you rather than who’s not.”
Not for the first time in this life, the woman was absolutely right.
eBook Info
Title:
Strangled
Creator:
Brian Mcgrory
Date:
2007
Type:
novel
Format:
text/html
Identifier:
ISBN 1-4165-3842-9
Source:
PDF
Language:
en
Relation:
None
Coverage:
None
Rights:
Copyright © 2007 by Brian McGrory
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43