Free Revenge of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz Page A

working?”
    “I’m retired.”
    “Right, but I thought you did some freelance stuff—security, PI work…”
    “Not lately.”
    “Really?” I asked, trying to contain my skepticism.
    “Really,” Bob replied, finally making eye contact. He was growing suspicious. I wasn’t sure how much steam I had left before the conversation would be officially over.
    “So, what have you been up to?” I asked.
    “This and that.”
    Bob certainly had no reason to deny being employed. Unless, of course, his employer insisted that he sign a confidentiality agreement. Now all I had to do was find out who Bob was working for, who hired them, and why. Piece of cake.
    I returned to my parents’ house (once again sneaking through the window) and ran a credit report on Bob, hoping it would reveal his current employer. But Bob’s primary income was from his pension, and no current employer was listed. As I slipped out the window, I began to contemplate an innocent scenario that could explain why two private investigators were surveilling one Linda Black.

DAVID’S SECRET
    T hat same night, when I finally had David’s place to myself, I poured myself a drink from the bottle of Jack Daniel’s with my name on it and roamed the sprawling residence, searching for either more incriminating evidence or at least something that could explain the gun.
    After an hour and a half, all I’d found was a snack-sized bag of M&M’s in the back of a file cabinet and an unopened box of Red Vines in the linen closet. I thought about the “Do NOT” list, especially its “Do not sleep in my bed” dictum, and decided to refocus my investigative energies on the bedroom. I had already checked between the mattress and the box spring, rummaged through the storage bins on the top shelf of his closet, searched for false bottoms in his dresser drawers, and even scanned the floor for loose boards. Nothing.
    I was about to give up on the bedroom when I grabbed a flashlight and crawled under the bed. There was nothing on the floor, but when I twisted onto my back I found a notebook stuck in the slats of the bed frame.
    I’ll be honest: I was hoping for something juicy like a diary, although in retrospect the idea of my brother having a diary is rather disturbing, so I guess in the end it was a good thing. Besides, even I would be racked with guilt over reading someone’s diary. Not that I wouldn’t do it, but I would certainly feel bad about it.
    What I found was a notebook resembling a ledger. Inside I found something unexpected. It was a handwritten spreadsheet of dates, sporting events, point spreads, bets, wins, and losses. It was in my brother’s handwriting and there was no way to see this notebook as anything but a gambler’s record. But, obviously, the gambler was my brother, and based on the record of wins and losses, he was losing big.
    I spent the rest of the evening trying to contemplate a scenario that didn’t paint my brother as a compulsive gambler. The following morning I decided to give myself a break from the David investigation and involve myself in a much more enjoyable activity.

“DO NOT THROW ANY PARTIES…”
    A s you may have gathered, it was my plan to break every rule on David’s “Do NOT” list. The party was the one rule I was most looking forward to breaking. However, good parties usually involve a celebratory occasion, and since birthdays, New Year’s, and every other booze-oriented holiday were either long past or far away, I had to arrive at an altogether different festive theme. And then it occurred to me—a theme more festive than any other I could think of: the end of my court-ordered therapy.
    I planned the party on a Friday morning. The modest guest list included the following individuals: Petra, Morty, Gabe, Daniel (Ex-boyfriend #9, the dentist) and his wife, Len and Christopher, Milo, Mom, Dad, and Rae. My paltry list of invitees confirmed a long-standing opinion of my brother’s—I don’t have enough