Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,70

which was completely untrue and a very stupid thing to say. If we had fallen in love like teenagers, we were quarreling like teenagers, and if we had been a little younger, I’d have given him back his letter jacket. And his class ring.

And then, just as we pulled into my parking lot, his beeper went off.

Martin said something truly terrible.

“I have to go.” He was suddenly calm.

“I have to tell you something,” I told him urgently, “about Franklin Farrell. Before tomorrow!”

“I can’t believe I said all those things.”

“Please come back.” I was almost crying. I’d been through too many emotions in one day, and they were seeking their natural vent.

“As soon as I handle the situation at the plant, I’ll come back.”

“Wait a second,” I said as I slid out of the car. I ran to unlock my back door and ran back to the car. “Here’s my key.” I put it in his hand and closed his fingers around it. “I have another I’ll use. Come on in when you get back.”

We looked at each other searchingly. “I’ve never given anyone a key to my own house before,” I said, slamming the car door and running into the townhouse.

Madeleine was standing curiously in the cold draft from the door I’d left open, and she rubbed against my legs as I stood in the kitchen area wondering what on earth I was going to do.

I wandered up the stairs, pulling off my finery with little regard for my hair. I left my earrings in, and sat at my dressing table admiring them absently while I tried to figure out what to do.

What if I called the police station and said there was a kidnapped woman in Franklin’s house? Wouldn’t they be obliged to break in to see?

Maybe not. I could hardly call Arthur to find out.

Report a fire?

Well, the firemen wouldn’t recognize the vases, as indeed most of the policemen wouldn’t. Of course, we didn’t have photographs of them, and my mother had only a general memory of their shape and position on the night tables.

Tomorrow Martin would be taken in for questioning if I couldn’t draw attention to Franklin now. Day after tomorrow, Franklin would take the vases to Atlanta and sell them or drop them-in the river on the way, if he hadn’t done it already.

He’d be out of his house tonight, with Miss Glitter.

I stood there in the bathroom with my fists balled, trying to steel myself against the decision I was about to make.

Okay. I’d have to do it.

Thinking harsh thoughts about how incredibly stupid I was, I pulled on heavy socks and blue jeans and a T-shirt and a sweatshirt. I zipped up my black boots and found an old jacket with deep pockets. I found a knit scarf that had a hood for the head and then two long ends that tossed around the neck, which I pinned so I wouldn’t have to keep fooling with them. Everything I had on was black or dark brown or navy blue. I looked like someone who’d dressed with only a tiny amount of light in the closet, just enough to pick out dark colors, but not the right dark colors. Amina would have a fit, I thought wryly.

I did keep on my beautiful earrings.

Downstairs I trudged, terrified and determined, to stuff my pockets with screwdrivers and anything that looked as if it might be helpful in breaking into Franklin Farrell’s house.

I added a heavy, fist-sized rock to my collection of potential burglary tools. I’d brought it home as a souvenir of a trip to Hot Springs, and it was dark with a protrusion of clear crystal. Then I remembered a crowbar in a box of Jane Engle’s tools I’d had stored in my extra bedroom.

I dumped everything into the car. It was eleven o’clock, my dashboard informed me. I am a law-abiding person, I told myself grimly. I don’t litter. I don’t even jaywalk. I never park in Handicapped spaces. I pay my taxes on time. I only lie when it’s polite. Lord have mercy on me for what I’m about to do.

That thought, from my saner self, sent me right back inside. I took a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote, “Martin: Franklin Farrell is the man who killed Tonia Lee Greenhouse. I am going to go break into his house and get back the vases he took from the Anderton place. Eleven o’clock. Roe.” Somehow writing this note made me think