Die Job by Lila Dare Page A

poor jack-o’-lantern went ka-blooey!” She flung her hands wide apart. Her frill of hair quivered. “Next thing I knew, you were standing over me. Did I say thank you?”
    She held out her bony hand and I took it. “You’re very welcome,” I said, squeezing her cool fingers gently. “Did you see anything else? A person? A vehicle?”
    A frown crinkled her brow. “Now that you mention it, I think there was a truck or an SUV—something big—parked at the curb.”
    That fit with the squeal of tires I’d heard. “Well, you tell the policeeverything when they get here, Mrs. Jones. I’m so glad you weren’t seriously injured. I’ll hose the pumpkin guts off the veranda for you when I get home.” I rose, brushed muffin crumbs off my jeans, and said good-bye. I was going to have to hustle to catch Rachel before she left for school.

Chapter Nine

    HALF AN HOUR LATER, HAVING BROKEN THE NEWS TO Rachel and her mother and feeling like I’d been up all night, I dragged myself into the salon and told Mom, Althea, and Stella. As if sensing my distress, Beauty, Stella’s white Persian who usually doesn’t consort with lowly humans, leaped onto my lap and purred while I absently stroked her head.
    “I hope you told Rachel not to come in today,” Mom said.
    “I told her not to come in all week if she didn’t feel like it, but she said she’ll be back tomorrow.”
    “I’ll bet Rachel’s really freaked out that one of her friends is a murderer,” Stella said with a shiver.
    The three of us stared at her.
    “Well, it has to be, doesn’t it? There weren’t any tourists at Rothmere on a Saturday night, so it must have been one ofthe kids who pushed Braden. Or a chaperone.” She looked questioningly at me.
    “You’re right,” I said slowly. I hadn’t gotten around to puzzling through who might have done it. “But the kids were all paired up. And as for the chaperones . . . I can’t imagine a reason why Glen Spaatz or Coach Peet or the other woman—she was some girl’s mother—would want to kill Braden. Oh, and Lucy was there, too, but she was in her office.”
    “That woman’s a few pecans shy of a pie,” Althea said.
    “Thinking she’s the reincarnation of Amelia Rothmere doesn’t make her a murderer,” I said. Beauty jumped off my lap and went to intimidate squirrels with her evil cat glare through the front window. I brushed long, white hairs off my jeans. “Although, if she happened to see one of the kids damaging the house or its contents in some way, there’s no telling what she might do. I thought she was going to slap me for using the parlor drapes to keep Braden warm.”
    “That was good thinking.” Mom nodded approvingly. “And Lucy’s harmless. Just a little . . . eccentric.”
    Althea looked unconvinced. It was opening time so I unlocked the front door and greeted Euphemia Toller, an octogenarian who came weekly to have Mom set and curl her thinning hair. She was a small woman with a dowager’s hump that threatened to topple her over.
    “I’m leaving early to help the school with their fund-raising head shaves,” I reminded Mom as she fastened a violet cape around Mrs. Toller’s hunched shoulders.
    “I’m leaving, too,” Mrs. Toller said in the overly loud voice of the near-deaf. “My son’s driving over from Albany to take me back with him this afternoon. He says he doesn’t want to have to worry about Horatio blowing me away.”
    “You’re lucky to have such a loving son,” Mom said.
    I pulled up the wooden blinds and stared at the sky. It was leaden today, a surly gray, and the wind had picked up. I knew there’d be whitecaps on the sound. My first client came in and I tried to focus on cutting and coloring for the rest of the morning, but my mind niggled at the mystery of Braden’s death whenever I wasn’t talking to someone.
    I left shortly after noon to keep my appointment with Agent Dillon at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Regional