rain.”
I shrugged and started to leave then stopped at the
open doorway and turned. “Since when did you believe in the power of prayer?”
“I don’t. I just thought I’d get a rise out of you.”
“Well you know what thought did?”
Her voice followed me down the hallway and caught up
at the kitchen.
“If I said it out loud do you think it would make a
difference?”
“Your lips to God’s ear…? Not very likely!”
*****
Danny tugged the T-shirt over his head and ran his
finger through his wet hair. “Nic, do you want to eat at Applebee’s tonight? I
saw one just up the road.”
“Sounds good to me,” Nicola called from the bathroom.
A short time later she stepped into the room wearing
Victoria’s Secret black lace underwear, the copper highlights in her hair
backlit from the light behind.
Danny looked up from the battered notebook he had been
flicking through, and grinned…
“Don’t even think about it,” Nicola warned as she
grabbed a pair of jeans off the bed, wriggled into them, pulled up the zip and
snapped the stud-fastener in place.
Danny watched as she pulled a charcoal-gray jersey
top over her head, tug it over her breasts, and fluffed up her hair.
“Remember when we were traveling through Chadds Ford
this morning I said the name, not the place, sounded familiar?” he said.
Nicola nodded.
“Well, I found out why. I looked through my book of
Harley contacts and found a guy I met some years ago at a swap meet in
Davenport, Iowa, who lives in Chadds Ford. I made a note at the time that it
would be worthwhile getting in touch if I was ever in the area.” Danny waited
for some kind of response. But Nicola said nothing, so he continued, “So while
you were in the shower I gave him a call and arranged to drop by his place
later tonight.”
“Oh, sure, we can do that. It’s not far from here,”
Nicola said as she put the finishing touches to her makeup in front of the
mirror.
Danny was about to say something when there was a
knock on the door. He crossed the room and opened it to a tall bearded man
wearing a baseball cap pulled low on his head and wraparound sunglasses.
“Can I help you?” Danny asked.
The man looked past him to where Nicola was standing
in front of the mirror and said, “Sorry, I must have the wrong room,” and
walked off.
THIRTEEN
We strode purposefully into the room. Tall and
willowy, we were a couple of babes that had more chutzpah than all the Paris
Hilton and Britney Spears look-alikes put together. Just because we had shrunk
a centimeter or two, have love handles in places you wouldn’t want to know, and
touched up the odd bit of gray hair–doesn’t make it not so.
People greeted us with warm smiles as we passed.
“Hi, Linda,” Rosie said as she dropped her bag on the
empty chair next to her friend.
Linda peekedout from behind the pages of a magazine and nodded a
sigh.
“Hey, Linda, how’s tricks?” I sat on the chair and
made myself comfortable.
Linda’s head shot up with a
startled look on her face. “Tricks! What tricks?”
“Never mind, Linda, it’s just an expression.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll just go and change.” Rosie grabbed a gown from
the table and headed for the change room.
“What have you been up to lately, Linda?”
“Up to? I haven’t been up to anything. Who said I
had?”
“Nobody. I was just trying to
make polite conversation the way normal folks do.”
Linda looked at Rosie and smiled as she sat down
beside her. “I’ve found a good place to hide the body,” she said excitedly.
I leaned across the front of my sister. “Sorry, Linda,
you’re too late. The body has already been buried. We’re not going to dig it up
and move it. Especially now it’s started to putrefy, and the worms and maggots
have started to infest it. It would just be too messy.”
“It would probably be all bloated up and smelly as
well,”
Aubrianna Hunter
B.C.CHASE
Piper Davenport
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Jennifer Erin Valent
Nick Lake