Free Deception by Jane Marciano Page A

been very proud and that I’d always tried to keep clean, and it almost broke my heart to see the place in such decay.
    I turned back to Kristie, and my eyes dropped to the soup she had been about to snack on. “I hope it bloody well chokes you,” I snarled. “That’ll teach you to listen through doorways to other people’s conversations. And believe me; I know what I’m talking about!”
    She leapt forwards as if her bum were on fire, and brandished her spoon in my face. I was hard put not to flinch, but I held my ground. After all, this had been my ground longer than it had been hers.
    Tomato soup dripped onto the linoleum like blood dribbling from an open wound.
    “What the hell are you doing here?” she snarled back.
    Meanwhile Freddie had stepped forward, propping the kitchen door open with one palm against the wood, and was watching us with a look of amazement on his face.
    “Kristie! What are you doing here,” he demanded of her. “How did you get in?”
    The smile she gave him wasn’t particularly sweet. “Oh, I’m often in and out of this place, my darling. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t copy the key that she left behind when she was supposed to be gone forever? After you told me she’d be gone forever, Freddie?”
    Without waiting for an answer, she came closer, pressing me back into the hallway so that literally I was cornered.
    “So why are you here?” she repeated.
    “None of your business,” I retaliated.
    “Did Freddie let you in?” she demanded, then once more she switched her attention, this time to the man standing looking on. “Freddie, did you let her in!”
    His shoulders seemed to droop. “I thought you’d gone out, Kris.”
    “I did go out. And then I came back. Just as well, eh?”
    Part of me registered the friction between them and was glad. So they weren’t quite the cosy a couple I thought. Unless, of course, this was just the way they acted together all the time. Some people were like that. And then I shrugged. What’s it to me how they behaved? This wasn’t my home anymore; they were no longer a part of my life. I had made up my mind. I was turning over a new leaf.
    “If you two have a problem, sort it out between yourselves. I don’t give a damn. As for me, don’t worry, I’m not staying any longer. I only came to pick up my belongings.”
    I reached for the doorknob and managed to open the door, just as she lunged forward and grabbed hold of my jacket. She yanked so hard I was nearly toppled. We were the same height for once because I was wearing high heels and she was wearing flattish pumps, but I was still alarmed by her strength and the speed of her action.
    “What the hell…?” I managed to tug myself free and rounded on her. “Are you completely nuts?”
    Coming close, Kristie jabbed the bowl of the spoon towards me, just centimetres away from my throat. Her pupils seemed to have turned black, like twin pools of jet.
    “You stay away from him, you hear me?”
    “Well, if you let me get to the door, I’ll do just that.”
    “I wish I could believe you. But I know you, Bailey Cathcart. I know you.”
    The shy and quiet girl I remembered from the office was long gone, replaced by this flame-haired witch with piercing green-black yes who looked as if she wanted to tear me apart.
    “Believe me, honey, the man’s all yours.”
    She gave me a long, considering look. “He was never yours, that’s for sure, though you would’ve liked him to be. No, you never quite managed to get him to put a ring on your finger, did you? He never promised to love, honour and obey you, did he?”
    “I think you’ve got it round the wrong way, you moron,” I said, somewhat fazed by the fact that she kept jabbing the spoon toward my face like the most lethal of weapons. In her hand perhaps it was, since she seemed to be trying to scoop out my eyes with it. “Look, do you mind not shoving that thing in my face? I’ve already eaten.”
    She looked at me, long and