And Then There Was One by Patricia Gussin

Author:Patricia Gussin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Midpoint Trade Books
Published: 2010-12-19T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

Continental Flight 61 from Brussels to Newark, New Jersey,

Lands Safely after Mid-flight Death of Pilot.

— International News, Thursday, June 18

Marge Spansky clomped down the basement steps, carrying a large plastic bowl brimming with popcorn. She’d promised the twins that she’d be back after their dinner to read to them. Jennifer had asked for Heidi, Marge’s all-time favorite, and Jessica wanted to read the next installment of the The Bobbsey Twins. Those two didn’t know how good they had it.

As she passed the door leading to the outside, she looked to make sure that both the bolt and the chain locks were secure, and at the bottom of the steps, she unlocked the door to the basement with the key around her neck.

First, she blinked, then dropped the bowl of popcorn, when she opened the door. Strewn about were scraps of paper. Parts of board games, doll clothes, their clothing. What had they been thinking? Were they trying to play a trick on her? This was not funny.

“What have you two done?” Marge stared at the mess, her face turning shades of red. “You’ve trashed the place.”

Before they could answer, she swooped inside. The girls sat on folding chairs at the twisted cardboard table, their faces sassy and fresh.

Marge lunged at them, unable to control the anger bubbling up inside. Such defiance could not be tolerated. Jessica swung out of the way, but Marge’s slap connected with the side of Jennifer’s face.

“Stop it,” Jessica shouted. “You hit her!”

Marge reached out to grab Jessica, but Jennifer pulled on her arm, and Marge stepped backward.

“You’re going to pay for this,” she warned. “Now get the broom and clean up this mess. Forget me reading to you tonight.”

Jennifer moved to get the broom, but Jessica stared at her with a sullen look. Before she unlocked and relocked the room, Marge lifted Jessica up by her hair and smacked her hard across the face.

“Double trouble,” she mumbled on the way out.

Dr. Susan Reynolds and Lucy Jones were about to leave for the evening, hoping that Katie and Scott could get some sleep in the cots adjacent to Jackie’s bed.

Since Streeter had shown them the police artist’s sketch, they’d searched their memories again and again. The FBI had e-mailed the sketch to everyone in their professional and personal universe, but got no plausible match. The Tampa field office had promptly checked out the two new leads Agent Rusk got from his visit to Roberta and the Cutty boys. Camry had passed on the results: nothing.”

“Waste of time,” Rusk told Streeter from Tampa. “Babcock, the Cutty cleaning woman. Nice lady. Thinks Cutty was a pompous jerk, but she knows nothing about Katie Monroe or her family. The late Mrs. Cutty hired her just weeks before she died so she doesn’t have much family history to draw on. She said the boys were sweet, but holy terrors around the house.”

“What about the Cutty sexual abuse thing?” Streeter had asked.

“No inkling, or so she claimed,” Rusk said. “Soon as Kaninsky moved in, Cutty fired her and hired a cleaning service.

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