Faithful Unto Death by Stephanie Jaye Evans

Author:Stephanie Jaye Evans [Evans, Stephanie Jaye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780425247730
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2011-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

Settegast-Koph Funeral Home was handling the funeral. They have a location less than ten minutes from the church, so I didn’t really need the half hour I’d allowed for drive time, but I needed to get out of that meeting. Usually I use extra minutes to return phone calls, and that’s what I should have done; my cell was showing two voice mails and three text messages. But I had hamster wheels spinning in my head and I couldn’t settle to it.

I sat in the funeral home parking lot running the air conditioner like I had access to HD’s bottomless gas card and tried to think about what I should do about what Alex had told me. The hamster wheels spun on without producing one single idea. I’d gotten out of the car and headed for the door when I saw Honey’s Escalade pull in.

Cruz got out of the driver’s seat. I’d never seen her drive Honey’s car, and it was a little bit funny watching her clamber out of the high-set SUV. Short women should not drive SUVs.

Honey slipped out of the passenger side and leaned her head against the edge of the opened door for a minute before she took a step away from the Escalade and slammed the door. Honey was wearing a crumpled black linen suit that bleached her of color, and one wing of her auburn hair stood up wonky-like. An unsteady step confirmed my suspicions about why Cruz was driving.

Jenasy Garcia got out of the backseat and slammed the door so hard it made my teeth hurt.

She looked like a taller, slimmer, and angrier version of Honey. Oh, and Jenasy was sober, so that was different, too. Her auburn hair was pulled into a loop and her face was somber and swollen from crying. In contrast to her mother’s tailored suit, Jenasy was wearing jeans, flat sandals, and a Southwestern University tee. She had her arms crossed tightly below her breasts. She didn’t look at me or her mother, and when Cruz said something to her in Spanish, Jenasy shot back in staccato Spanish that didn’t sound particularly reconciliatory. My Spanish CDs evidently had limits, because I couldn’t follow any of it except that I’m pretty sure Jenasy called her mother a cow’s head. Or the mother of a cow’s head, which sounds less likely, because that would make Jenasy the cow’s head . . .

I got out to meet them.

Honey said, “Thanks for being here, Bear. Jenasy, you remember Mr. Wells, don’t you?”

Jenasy looked up at me and nodded and offered me a cool, slim hand.

She said, “You’re Merrie’s dad.”

I said I was and I offered my condolences.

Jenasy gave me another nod and a twist of her mouth.

She asked, “Is Father Nat already here?”

Her voice was rough and thick with the tears she was holding back.

I didn’t know. We walked in together with Cruz leading the way and waited in the dim foyer for someone to come out and give us some direction. Honey sat on the edge of the sofa and hugged her purse.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.