Too Sweet to Die by Ron Goulart, Llc Ebook Architects Page B

to that, opened the metal lid. “Might as well,” he said. He threw the master switch. None of the lights in the lodge could be turned on now.
    The door leading down to the stairway started to open.
    Easy spun, clicked off the lantern, and ran through the darkness straight at the stairs. Two strides short he dodged to the right.
    The door opened fully. “I’ll give you one minute, one minute, to come up and then I’m going to come down shooting,” warned Dr. Ingraham in the blackness.
    Perched on top of the furnace, Easy was about ten feet below the doorway. He could hear Ingraham breathing, but it was too dark to see the little doctor.
    After thirty seconds something quietly shuffled across the top step. Dr. Ingraham was going to risk climbing down into the cellar.
    From where he was on the furnace Easy could reach up through the open wood steps. He waited, hunkered uncomfortably, listening. When his ears told him Ingraham had descended to a point within his reach, Easy made a sudden grab. He clutched black air the first time, but the second time he got hold of the little doctor’s ankle. Easy pulled hard.
    “What, what,” muttered Ingraham. The doctor tripped, went rolling and tumbling down the thirty more feet of rough wood steps.
    Easy jumped, flashing on the lantern. He was in time to see Ingraham’s head smack against the stone floor. The doctor didn’t get up.
    Beside him, Easy felt at Ingraham’s wrist. He was alive, but out cold. Easy took the doctor’s rifle and the snub-nose .32 revolver he found in his jacket.
    Sticking the revolver in his other hip pocket, Easy said, “One more gun nut and I’ll run out of pockets.”
    He left the unconscious doctor where he’d fallen and climbed up toward the living room, with the lantern off again.
    No sound was coming from up there. Easy stopped in the dark doorway. Finally he turned the lantern back on and let its light circle the big pinewood room.
    There was no one there.

CHAPTER 20
    E ASY FOUND J ILL J EFFERS in the library of the house. She was tied to a straight-back kitchen chair. Three walls of crisp unread books surrounded her. A slim pretty girl, the bones of her cheeks showed sooty in the lantern light. Her gold-blonde hair hung straight and there was a slight purplish discoloration beneath her right eye, She was wearing a dark pullover and tapered gray slacks.
    The girl turned her head toward him. “What do you want to do to me?” she asked.
    Easy rested the lantern on a magazine table so that it shined on both of them. He grinned. “I’m with the liberation forces,” he said, fishing out his pocket knife.
    Jill watched him, eyes slightly narrowed. “I think I detect a rudimentary sense of humor,” she said. “Meaning you can’t be working for Cullen or my late father.”
    “That’s right.” Easy inserted the blade under the clothes line which had been used to tie her hands behind her and to the chair.
    “Not that it matters much,” said the girl. “But who are you?”
    “John Easy.” He got the strands sawed through. “I’m a private investigator from Los Angeles.” He untangled the last of the ropes from round the slender girl. “Move your arms around in front of you.”
    She grimaced. “They’re asleep.”
    Easy helped her, then rubbed at her wrists. “Flex your fingers,” he suggested.
    “You’re very gentle for a private eye.”
    “I’ve already beaten up my quota for tonight.”
    Jill made fists of her hands. “I’m getting them back under control,” she said. “My backside is a little numb, too, but I guess I can handle that myself. Who hired you, Mr. Easy, and for what exactly?”
    “Marco Killespie,” he said. “To find you.”
    Jill blinked, then put one hand against the side of her face and laughed. “Good old Marco and his hilarious commercial,” she said. “Somewhere along the way I forgot all about him.” She put her hands on her lap, smiled a tight-mouthed smile at Easy. “This is all very