Dead Ends (Main Street Mysteries Book 2) by Sandra Balzo Page B

add another couple of minutes assuaging her guilty conscience.
    ‘My dad can be difficult, I won't lie, but I do like the work.’
    ‘From what I've heard, you're also very good at it.’
    She was rewarded with a pleased smile and AnnaLise had a hunch she'd have seen a blush if Josh wasn't so tanned from his outdoor job. ‘I thank you, though Suze and me've been talking about my maybe going back to school.’
    ‘College?’ AnnaLise asked, wondering if this was Josh's idea or Suzanne's. Either way, the journalist thought it would be a good thing. Fred Eames might love his son, but he couldn't be doing much for the young man's self-esteem.
    Josh tilted his head. ‘Well, I really do like the work and it pays the bills, but it sure would be nice to have a little something left for my back pocket.’
    AnnaLise loved the syntax and rhythm of High Country English. ‘And you think that won't happen if you stay in your dad's business?’
    ‘ Hasn’t happened, even for him. Besides, eventually, the mountains will be built out, at least as far as the county will let them be. Then the only work will be renovations like this one and, no offense, that's not where the big money is.’
    ‘I hear you,’ AnnaLise said, impressed by the amount of thought Josh had given the subject. ‘And believe me, I'd be the first one to advise you to get your degree. Have you considered where?’
    ‘I can't afford U-Mo, where Suze is, but I was thinking maybe Lees-McRae right down the road in Banner Elk. That way it wouldn't be too much of a financial burden and Suze and I would still be close by each other. Maybe even get an apartment together.'
    Wow, AnnaLise thought as she gave Josh a wave before turning the key again in the ignition. A one-eighty turnaround for the troubled kid who’d barely made it through high school. Maybe Joshua Eames and Suzanne Rosewood would turn out to be good for each other after all.

Fifteen
    Not wanting to follow Daisy's example of Monday afternoon, AnnaLise called the spa to warn Joy she was running late, only to find that her friend had a training client for the next hour anyway.
    Given the extra time, AnnaLise decided to take the state highway to the upper entrance of the mountain. She'd have to cross Sutherton Bridge to reach Hotel Lux whichever way she went, but the highway route would take her past the garage where her poor Spyder had been towed, so she could claim any property from the little car before it went to the parking lot in the sky.
    AnnaLise turned off at a sign trumpeting 'Sutherton Auto Sales, Service and Scrap.' Talk about your cradle-to-grave operation, she thought, following the bend of the gravel drive past the main sales building to the service garage.
    She parked the Chrysler in the shadow of the building. Earl Lawling was inside one of the bays busy with a tire, but it wasn't him AnnaLise had come to see.
    The scrap yard was wisely hidden behind a slight rise and it was on that hill – the limbo between repair and salvage – that she found her Spyder. Poor thing looked like it had been scalped and left for dead, canvas pate on the ground next to it.
    As AnnaLise observed a moment of silence, Lawling emerged from the repair bay. ‘Come to say your goodbyes?’
    ‘And pick up anything I might have left inside,’ she looked at the fully-detached roof, ‘if it's still there.’
    ‘If I were you, miss, I'd just be counting my blessings I got out, unlike the poor lady in that one.’
    He pointed and AnnaLise turned to see the Rosewood's Porsche, three tires blown and one wheel completely missing.
    ‘By the by,’ Lawling continued. ‘I have a nice selection of new and used cars if you're in the market.’
    If
she was in the market? AnnaLise couldn't drive her mother's car forever and, besides, she'd certainly need something to drive back to Wisconsin the end of the month. Still, it seemed too early to replace the Mitsubishi when the car hadn't even been given a proper burial.
    ‘I