The Sister-in-Law: An absolutely gripping summer thriller for 2021 by Pamela Crane (best free ereader txt) 📕

‘Not if we do it properly. It’s the only option. You came in the front door, first noticed the broken window in the dining room as you walked by, then ran into the living room looking for Ben. That’s when you saw him lying on the sofa – already dead.’

Her eyes narrowed curiously. ‘What broken window?’

Grabbing a hand towel from a kitchen drawer, I wrapped up my fist and went outside, with Harper on my heels. Years of Matlock and Psych reruns had taught me everything I needed to know to execute this with a semblance of believability. Break the glass inward for authenticity, then reenact the crime to ensure it all fit in place. It was still dark enough outside to cover us in shadow. I glanced up and down Hendricks Way, the quiet rows of sleepy homes … except for one glowing window across the street and a couple doors down. The neighborhood busybody. I doubted the old hen could see us from there through the darkness.

Along the wraparound porch were two windows that faced the side yard. I paused at one of them, raising my arm to determine the easiest place to break the glass.

‘Whoa, are you serious?’ Harper jumped between me and the window. ‘These are the original walk-through Italianate windows! They cost a fortune to replace. You’re not going to break one, are you?’

‘Harper, a thief isn’t going to care about your fancy windows. If you want to sell this story, it’s got to look real.’ I nudged her aside and aimed for the lower part of the glass, near my knee.

Thank God for single-glaze glass, which made it easy to break through, first with my hand, then kicking an opening large enough for a man to walk through. I stepped into the opening that led to the dining room as Harper winced at the crunch of glass beneath my boots.

‘My floors …’ she whimpered. ‘Ben and I spent an entire summer refinishing these floors. Now you’ve scratched them all up.’

I shook my head at her, incredulous that she was worried about some wooden planks at a time like this. ‘It needs to be believable, Harp. You can replace the glass and fix the floors with your three-million-dollar life insurance payout.’

The dining room was across the house from the living room, far enough away that if Ben had the television on and blaring, as he usually did, there was a good chance he wouldn’t have heard the glass breaking. Plus, the windows were easily accessible from the porch and hidden behind dense shrubs – a perfect entry point for your everyday thief in the night. It seemed believable enough to me. I hoped it was enough for the police.

Harper followed me through the opening, her footsteps light as she stepped around the splintered carnage. A robbery needed to have things robbed, so I searched the first floor for anything of value – an antique mantel clock, several expensive vases, a painting from someone famous whose name I couldn’t, and didn’t care to, remember. I pulled the painting off the wall.

‘Hey, put that back!’ Harper demanded, seizing the framed art from me. ‘That’s a Jackson Pollock I got at auction. Ben practically had a fistfight with the other bidder to get me this. I can’t replace that.’

I should have remembered Jackson Pollock, considering it was the artist Ben and Harper had named their son after. I grabbed it back.

‘Which is exactly why the thief stole it. We need to hurry. The more time we waste, the more you risk. Go upstairs and grab your expensive jewelry and any valuables that you can easily carry.’

‘What are you going to do with my stuff?’ Harper whimpered, carrying a plastic bag of jewelry.

‘I’ll drop the small stuff off at Goodwill and hide the painting in my attic until things blow over.’

‘But these are family heirlooms!’

‘Jewelry is useless if you’re in jail or living on the streets, Harp!’ How was this so hard for her to understand?

Ten minutes later the ‘stolen goods’ were tossed in the trunk of my car, which I had pulled into the garage to avoid any neighborly observations, and everything looked the way I expected a break-in should look. There was always the chance I had missed something, but as I recreated the events step by step, I thought – and hoped – it was convincing enough.

The last – and hardest – part was the body. The knife sat rigid in Ben’s chest, a pool of blood around the wound and a drizzle of it snaking to the floor. One hand still clung to the hilt, the other had flopped over the edge of the sofa.

I didn’t want to risk messing with the body more than Harper had already done, so I decided to let it be. It seemed plausible Ben was sleeping when his attacker snuck in and stabbed him. Perhaps Ben had reached for the knife to try to pull it out … but was too weak with impending death to succeed. Then it was lights out, and here we were. Anything was possible … I hoped.

‘Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to call 9-1-1 now. Then you’re going to call me, so that there’s a call record of you phoning me after them. It’s important they think they were the first immediate call made after you found Ben dead.’

‘Uh huh.’ Harper’s voice trembled, her gaze was unfocused and wild. She was barely hanging on to my instructions. The concern about the windows and floors, how she’d clung to the painting … it was how she compartmentalized. I had seen her get hung up on silly details the last time this happened. It was her coping method during extreme duress, focusing on anything but the real problem at hand.

‘Hey, sis, I got you. You’ll get through this.’ I hugged her, absorbing the shudder from each breath.

‘Thank you, Lane … for always saving me.’

‘I’m your brother. It’s what brothers do. I’m going to