Snipped in the Bud by Kate Collins Page B

If it hadn’t seemed as if I had a motive before, it certainly did now—revenge.
    I shoved the newspaper aside. Dave Hammond was so not going to be happy when he saw that article. If my profile got any higher, I could light a match and set Lady Liberty’s torch on fire. I checked the byline to see who I could thank for adding to my notoriety. The reporter in question was none other than the persistent, wixy Connor Mackay.
    Wixy, indeed. Weevil was more like it, as in boll weevil, as in what a worm ! Did he think making me look guilty in the press would prod me to spill my guts? Was that what he’d meant by “You’re going to want to talk to me”? Boy, did he have me pegged wrong. The only thing I had any desire to spill was boiling oil—on his head.
    I checked the time on the kitchen clock and breathed a sigh of relief. Mom never read the paper until she was having breakfast, which meant I was off the hook for at least twenty more minutes, plenty of time for a cup of strong coffee and a slice of toast.
    As I scooped ground beans into the filter, added water, and hit the On button, I heard a key in the lock, and a moment later my cousin appeared, looking slightly out of sorts from her night on the floor.
    “Coffee,” she rasped, opening the cabinet in search of her favorite mug—which used to be my favorite mug until she commandeered it.
    “I’m making it right now. What are you doing up so early? Noon is a long way off.”
    Jillian rubbed her lower back and flexed her shoulders. “Do you know how hard the floor is? My spine is killing me. I was too excited to sleep anyway. I have so much to do, starting with ordering bedroom furniture. Aren’t you excited about my new place?”
    “I’m so weak with excitement it’s making me hungry,” I said as she pulled a tub of whipped butter, a jar of strawberry jelly, and a loaf of whole wheat bread from the refrigerator. “In fact, would you put bread in the toaster for me, please?”
    Jillian dropped in a slice for each of us, pushed down the lever, then sat at the counter to wait. She spotted the newspaper and pulled it toward her, her eyes bugging. “That’s your picture! You made the front page!” But then, after skimming the article, her eyes bugged even further. “Omigod, Abby, this makes you look so—”
    “Guilty?”
    “I was going to say freckled.” She gave me a sympathetic look and reached out to stroke my hair away from my face. “And guilty. I’m so sorry.”
    It was a rare and touching moment until I realized she was restyling my hairdo. I sniffed the air. “I think the toast is burning.”
    “I’m on it. You sit right there and rest.”
    I was about to protest that I didn’t need a rest, but then I decided to let her play house mom for once. And as long as she was in a generous mood…“Would you do me another favor? The phone is going to ring in approximately”—I checked the clock on the microwave—“twelve minutes. It’ll be my mom. Tell her I know about the article, and that it’s all a misunderstanding. I’ll be talking to Dave Hammond later this morning to get it straightened out. In the meantime she is not to worry. Got it?”
    Jillian snickered. “Your mother not worry? Right. Like that’s a possibility. Okay, I’ll tell her, but you’ll have to do the same for me, because my mother will probably call here, too.”
    I gazed at my clueless cousin in wonder as she handed me a cup of coffee. “Jillian, I can’t answer the phone for you. It might be my mother calling.”
    She shrugged. “Then I guess the machine will have to pick up the calls.”
    “The ringing will wake Nikki. Look, why not answer in your French voice?”
    “ Mais, oui! I can pretend to be the maid. C’est magnifique! ”
    I was going to say she could pretend to be my friend Michelle from Quebec, but Jillian was so pleased with her idea that I didn’t bother to point out the incongruity of my employing a maid when I could barely pay my bills. But