3 Loosey Goosey by Rae Davies Read Free Book Online

photographer at the News , last night, but obviously he or someone else from the paper had stopped by long enough to capture my big moment.
    The picture featured Pauline scrambling over my prone body toward Tiffany, while Ben and Peter rushed in to save the day.
    Basically it was a frozen moment of complete chaos that showed none of us in our best light. Except maybe Peter. Even rushing toward a goose he looked dignified and in control.
    I reached out to take the paper, to see who was credited with the picture and to see what the article beneath it said, but the young officer pulled it back. “Is this your brother?”
    I twisted my lips. “Yes.”
    By this time, the area around Ben’s van was crawling with police personnel, photographing, talking into radios and staring down anyone – like me – who might have made an innocent move their direction.
    The News , in the form of Gary, the photographer, and Daniel, the pain-in-the-ass young gun reporter who had taken over the crime beat a few months earlier, had also arrived. Gary had positioned himself uphill from us, outside of the police’s reach, but within shot with his telephoto lens.
    Daniel was circling the lot like the shark that he was. I could feel his eyes on me, waiting for Peter and the other officer to leave so he could tear into me like yesterday’s kill.
    Peter saw him too. Without saying a word, or making any kind of intimidating gesture, he turned to face the reporter. After less than a minute of Peter’s unwavering attention, Daniel dropped his gaze and scurried out of sight.
    I looked up at my knight in cowboy gear, all ready to lavish him with praise and appreciation.
    He stared back at me, the expression in his hazel eyes not all that different from when he was looking at Daniel. “What am I going to do about you?”
    I pulled back, rightfully affronted. “What?”
    “You’re killing me, you know?”
    “Me?”
    He closed his eyes and shook his head. When he looked back at me, he sighed. “Stone is on his way here. He’ll be detective in charge.”
    Oh. In other words, my discovery of the body meant Peter would be sidelined from a case again.
    “He’ll want to talk to your brother.”
    “Okay.” My voice sounded weak, like a child caught doing something wrong, but I hadn’t done anything wrong. To the contrary I’d done everything I was supposed to do this time: called the police first, not messed with the body. What else did they want from me?
    I crossed my arms over my chest, mimicking Peter’s earlier stance.
    Inside my rig, my phone rang. I reached for my door. Peter’s hand covered mine, and he stepped closer. “Your brother isn’t in trouble and neither are you. We don’t even know cause of death yet. Still, find your brother.”
    I waited for him to finish. Find your brother and have him call the station. Find your brother and have him call a lawyer. Find your brother and have him run for Canada...
    But he just brushed his lips across mine and left it at that. Stepping back, he called to one of the other officers. “I’m letting Lucy go.” A statement, not a request, which reassured me that at least right now no one saw any reason to question me more.
    It was enough for me. I climbed back in my rig, shoving my dog out of my way as I did, and drove out of the lot. As I bumped over the curb to get around a barricade the police had set up, my phone twittered.
    I drove another fifty yards, far enough so that I was out of view of both the police and the paper, and pulled over.
    A text. From my mother.
    A sick feeling wrapped around me. Like when you have a breakfast of cotton candy and cola. Not, of course, that I had ever done such a thing.
    My thumb tapped on the phone’s flat surface. The text could be coincidence. It didn’t mean my mother had somehow sensed that all was not right in her children’s lives.
    Hell, things were rarely all well in my life, and my mom didn’t call constantly. Thank heavens.
    But my mother