Free Deadly Obsession (A Brown and de Luca Novel Book 4) by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page A

Wasn’t that a pretty big message?
    The front door opened, and the boys surged inside carrying pizza boxes and containers of hot wings and bottles of soda in bags.
    Josh dropped his burdens on the table, smiling ear to ear. “Hey, Rache! Did you bring Myrtle?”
    Before I could answer, Myrt came trotting into the kitchen, right to her favorite human. Josh dropped onto all fours, and the two of them rolled around on the floor together.
    Jeremy, watching them, smiled. “Hey, Rache,” he said. Then he blinked. “Wow, you look so much younger.”
    I lifted my brows, though my bangs probably hid it. “You bucking for a really huge graduation present or what?”
    He grinned. “Yes, but it’s still true.” Then he frowned. “What the heck...?”
    He was looking past me at the whining, trembling little piglet that had snuffled and shuffled its way into the kitchen and now stood in the doorway, looking longingly at Myrtle.
    “Don’t worry,” I said to Jere. “That’s not what I got you for graduation.”
    He was gone, though, blown away by a pair of giant brown eyes in a smooshed-up little white face. He floated across the room, picked up the little puppy and tucked it under his chin, rubbing it softly. “Where the heck did you come from? Huh?”
    The pup made little snuffles and whines that sounded as if he was trying to reply. Joshua got up and came closer. “Is it a baby Myrtle?”
    “Yep,” Mason said. “Except he’s a boy.”
    “Aw. He’s cute. You’re cute, aren’t you, little puppy?” Josh petted the pup’s little head as Jeremy continued to hold it.
    “I thought you should have a dog of your own,” Mason said. Then with another look at the sheer rapture on the older boy’s face, he quickly added, “Both of you. You know, ’cause you’ve been missing Myrtle so much.”
    Josh turned to Myrtle, who was standing there watching his every move. Then he bent to pet her again. “You got a baby brother, didn’t you, Myrt? Huh? A baby brother.”
    Myrtle turned around, putting her back to the boys and their furry little interloper, and sat down hard. I could’ve sworn she said “harrumph.” It certainly sounded like it.
    “I think Myrt’s gonna be a tough sell,” I said.
    “She’ll come around,” Mason said. “Josh, how you act is going to be the key. You can’t make Myrtle feel threatened by this new guy or she’ll hate him. You have to let her know she’s your number-one girl. And when she’s around, put the little guy second.”
    “Okay.”
    “I think he’s cold. He’s shaking,” Jeremy said.
    “I’ll go get you something to wrap him up in,” Mason said, and he headed up the stairs. I went up with him, because I wanted to talk to him privately about Jeremy’s graduation gift. It was something we’d been planning to discuss and hadn’t quite gotten around to yet.
    He headed into Jeremy’s room, not his own. “If I remember right, there’s a little blanket Jere had when he was a kid in here.” He opened Jeremy’s closet door, and a stack of letters fell right out at his feet. I think they must’ve been stacked on the shelf. Mason looked down, and so did I, and then we looked up and straight at each other. There were six of them, all from Jeremy’s mother, Marie Rivette Brown, in care of the Riverside Maximum Security Psychiatric Hospital.
    “Marie’s been writing to Jeremy?” I asked, my voice a squeaky whisper.
    “Apparently so.” Mason swallowed hard, but he didn’t pick the letters up. Instead he cleared his throat. “Jere,” he called. “Can you come up here for a sec?”
    There was barely a pause before the teenager’s size-eleven feet came pounding up the stairs. He stepped into his own bedroom and stopped in the doorway, looking at the letters, then at his uncle.
    “I wasn’t snooping, Jere. I was just gonna grab that blanket you had when you were kid. You know, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one.”
    “Yeah, I know the one.” He moved closer,