The Blood Betrayal by Don Donaldson

Author:Don Donaldson
Language: ara, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BelleBooks, Inc.
Published: 2014-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

ANNIE PILLOW was no older than her mid-thirties. Looking at her behind the counter displaying the spray deodorant bottles and little packets of Kleenex, it seemed likely she had never experienced the fabled bloom of youth, but had been homely her entire life. Even so, her boxy face, tiny eyes, and thin lips could have been helped with a little makeup. Why she didn’t even try was a story only she could tell.

The car wash was busy with people waiting to pay, so Carl and Beth queued up with everyone else and waited their turn. The line moved quickly, and in a few minutes, Carl was looking into the bland eyes of Arnold Hollenbeck’s most direct link with the living. “Hi, we don’t have a car being washed. We’d like to talk to you about your father.”

Annie looked at him and then Beth as though they were toilet bowl floaters that just wouldn’t flush. “My father’s dead,” she replied in a tone suggesting she’d silently added, you moron.

“I know he is, but I’d still like to ask you a few questions about him,” Carl replied. “It’s important.”

A subtext of irritation mingled with the expression of disgust already on her face. She huffed once through pinched lips in protest, then said, “Let me take care of the people behind you, then if no one else comes in, I’ll talk to you. But not for long.”

While the last two customers paid, another wandered in from where his car had entered the wash. It seemed to Beth that Annie took as long as possible to finalize that last transaction. She then looked up, leaned against the wall behind her, and folded her arms. “So what did you want to ask me?”

Carl introduced Beth and himself and went right to the part about Hollenbeck possibly being the key to some missing people. “We hoped by talking to you we might get some insight into your father that could help us understand what happened to those folks.”

“You want insight into my father? Okay, how’s this . . . he was a selfish bastard who cared more for his work than either my mother or me.”

Taken aback by the rage in her response, Carl didn’t know what to say.

Beth stepped in to fill the void. “I know sometimes men don’t show how much they care, but I’m sure he loved both of you.”

Annie’s already tiny eyes became slits in reinforced concrete. “Were you there?”

“No,” Beth admitted.

“Then you can’t have an opinion. If he’d loved me, he wouldn’t have treated me like a piece of furniture. And if he’d cared for my mother, he wouldn’t have been screwing around with another woman.”

Earlier, when Wells had mentioned Hollenbeck’s daughter, Carl had hoped she would know some pertinent and revealing things about her father that Wells didn’t. Her comment about him being a philanderer was certainly revealing, but it wasn’t pertinent.

Annie’s apparent estrangement from her father didn’t bode well for the two questions Carl wanted to ask before

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