Read All or Nothing for Free Online

Laurie’s home answering machine, which was the old–fashioned tape kind and which she never seemed to wipe off. In fact Laurie seemed to have no private life––the only messages were those from Steve Mallard. Innocuous messages like:
“I’ll see you tomorrow at six.”
And,
“I’m getting impatient, please get back to me.”
And,
“I’ll be there at seven, better let me take you out this time.”
    But they were messages that could be interpreted two different ways. To Bulworth, they sounded threatening. There was a pretty good circumstantial case already against Steve. Of his pursuit of Laurie––and perhaps her rejection of him. Like his assistant, Bulworth believed Steve Mallard had killed Laurie Martin in a jealous rage.
    But there was nothing he could do about it until they came up with a body.

8
    One hundred and thirty miles away, in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, Steve Mallard was driving as slowly as he possibly could in the edgy traffic toward his Encino home. He was not eager to face his wife, Vickie. He did not have good news.
    He had just come from another tense session at the Laguna PD. His jaw clenched remembering Detective Bulworth’s implacable face and the gimlet–eyed stare of Detective Powers. That woman looked as though she could pick him up with one hand and make mincemeat of him––and what’s more, she gave him the impression that was exactly what she would like to do.
    Steve had seen enough movies, read enough Tough Cop novels, though, to know what to expect. And he knew that he had to stick to his story. Not to waver from it one iota. Because give those bastards an inch and they would make a mile out of it in a minute. God, and he used to think the police were on his side. No more, though. No. Not anymore.
    The rented black Ford Taurus coughed in low gear as he crawled reluctantly home. He did not want to see his wife. He didn’t want to face her with what he had to tell her. But he had no choice.
    He reran the interrogation for the umpteenth time. He had admitted he was at the house when Laurie was supposed to be there. He had told them he had waited for her outside. The front door was unlocked, they said. He told them he knew that. He had even gone in, taken a look around while he was waiting for Laurie––he liked the house, he was hoping he could afford it.
    Laurie had to have been there, they persisted. How else could the door have been unlocked. “Perhaps somebody else had shown the house first,” he had said after thinking carefully about it. He had kept his wits about him, knew it was important to think carefully. . . .
    They had given him that fish–eyed look. “But Laurie was the only one with the keys. And no one saw you after you left work that afternoon. . . . You were at the house––where did you go after that   .   .   .   ?”
    “Back to my hotel room,” he had said. Which was the truth. “I spent the night alone in my hotel room.”
    “What proof do you have of that? What time did you get there? Who saw you   .   .   .   ?”
    Again and again they had asked him. And again and again he had told them.
    There is no proof that’s what you did, they had insisted, and he had felt himself wearing down, nerves grating, patience wearing thin.
    They had let him go finally, of course. They had to. They had no direct evidence, nothing linking him definitively to the disappearance of Laurie Martin. They still had not found her body.
    But then had come the bombshell. And now he had to tell Vickie about it.
    The pretty suburban development where he lived still had a look of newness about it. Neat front gardens, basketball hoops over garage doors, Rollerblades in the driveway. He wished he had never left it.
    He parked the rental car in the driveway and unlocked the front door.
    Vickie was sitting on the denim–blue sectional in the family room. The TV was on and she was, as usual these days, watching the news. She jolted upright when she heard the front