Murder Follows Money by Lora Roberts Page B

verge of liking her, but that unconscious arrogance nipped it in the bud. “They offered me a nice raise. But by then I knew what I wanted to do. And everything grew from that.”
    “So Naomi was your partner all along?”
    “She never had much vision,” Hannah said judiciously, “but she was great at executing. When I realized that ice sculptures would start a new craze, she was the person who found the one place left to get European-style ice sculptures. I’m going to miss her.”
    “So why did you cheat her over the crepe maker?”
    She turned to me, her eyes wrathful. “Don’t believe everything you hear. Naomi was getting greedy. She wanted to be a creative partner as well as a business one, even though mine has always been the guiding vision in our company. I commissioned that crepe maker with some other kitchen tools for a new line we’re going to offer in our catalog.”
    “So she didn’t invent it?”
    Hannah took a few more deep breaths. “It’s true that Naomi had one good idea about it. But she didn’t design it alone. I did a lot of the work too. And she didn’t build it—our contractor did. I gave her a very nice bonus for her contribution, but she wanted more.” Hannah’s jaw firmed. “If she hadn’t killed herself, we’d have probably come to a parting of the ways. I was getting fed up with her need to be in the limelight.”
    Because that was your place, I thought, but had the brains not to say. Obviously Hannah would brook no competition at center stage.
    Our solitude was disturbed by a man with a very large golden retriever, out for a morning stroll. The dog was interested in my pants legs, which probably smelled like Barker if your nose was very accurate. I scratched the dog’s ears, earning a blissful look from the dog and a chatty “Good morning” from its owner.
    Hannah stood up. “Let’s go,” she muttered, her hand once again in the raincoat pocket. I sighed and got to my feet. If our little interlude had been my opportunity to disarm my captor, I had blown it, so interested had I been in her recounting of tales from her past.
    She marched me back to the bus, and once more had me climb into it from the passenger side, following me in quickly so I couldn’t prepare any surprise for her. I drove back through Fort Mason while she fiddled with the radio, finally finding an all-news station. We listened in silence as a perky traffic reporter told us that traffic was sluggish on all approaches to the City. Several commercials followed. Then the news, full of depressing stories about blizzards, war, and Biblical-quality famine in various parts of the world.
    “In local news,” the radio chirped, “celebrity Hannah Couch is being sought for questioning in the suspicious death of her business partner, Naomi Matthews. The death occurred early this morning at the luxurious hotel where the two were staying while on a promotional tour for Ms. Couch’s new cookbook.”
    “Cookbook!” Hannah was outraged. “ Hannah Hosts Brunch is far more than a cookbook!”
    “Shh.” I turned up the radio. “Let’s listen to this.”
    ". . . believe she might have been abducted in connection with the death. Police are not saying if a ransom demand has been received, or if they have any leads on Ms. Couch’s whereabouts. Her great visibility as a celebrity will no doubt help them find her.
    “The threatened Muni strike—”
    Hannah turned the radio off. “You see. They think I’ve been abducted.”
    “You didn’t hear who they thought was kidnapped,” I pointed out. “It might have been me.”
    Stopped at the Lombard Street light, we stared at each other for a minute. Ringing commenced again.
    “I thought I turned that thing off.” Hannah took out her phone. It was still off. The ringing continued. “Do you have a cell phone?”
    The ringing was coming from my backpack. Hannah rummaged in it, found Judi Kershay’s phone, and turned it off. The light changed.
    “I need a better