A Dark and Lonely Place by Edna Buchanan Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes watery. “I raided his refrigerator, ate some stone crabs and key lime pie, locked my door, and went to bed with my cell phone.”
    He wished he’d been there.
    “I never heard Summer or Eagle come in. They didn’t. Hoped to see the big yellow machine in the driveway at dawn. It wasn’t. Summer didn’t pick up her cell. Hated to leave that expensive car on a downtown street, so I hired another cab. We passed Sky and the Lamborghini was gone. When it wasn’t back at the house either, I called the police to report it missing, and another taxi to take me to the airport. But your friend J. J. pulled up with questions about the car and I’ve been here ever since.”
    “For good reason, Laura.” Her name sounded so right, so familiar on his tongue. He’d never felt so instantly attracted to a woman. He studied the curve of her chin, the shadows of her throat, then struggled to refocus on business.
    “We hoped the girls who stayed at Eagle’s place could help us with a time line. I didn’t know you were one of them until I saw you on Sky’s surveillance tapes. The first time I saw you at the beach, I asked the photographer who you were. He must have misunderstood. He gave me Summer’s name instead.”
    “You asked who I was?” Her wet eyes focused fondly on him.
    “Right.” He sighed. “Do you remember what I said when I first walked in here? I thought you were dead.”
    Her smiled faded.
    He nodded. “Summer was killed last night.”
    “No! It can’t be! How?”
    He described the burning Dumpster in detail.
    Her eyes grew wetter, wider, tears spilled over. When he said the charred corpse was unrecognizable, her fists clenched.
    “Then how can you say it’s her? It could be anyone!”
    He described her ring, her purse, the car keys, and his own certainty that dental records would confirm her identity. If her shock was not genuine, he thought, she deserved an Oscar.
    The tiny lace square she dug from her handbag was soon crumpledand sodden. He hated to see her cry and groped for a man-sized handkerchief, which she gratefully accepted.
    He needed to know more about Summer.
    “Said she grew up in South Carolina, Charleston,” she gulped, wiping her eyes with his handkerchief. “Her mother’s name was Lucinda. I remembered, because that’s my cousin’s name.”
    He hit pay dirt on the Internet, a Parks and Lucinda Smith in Charleston. Their only child, Summer Lark Smith, debuted at a debutante cotillion at age seventeen. She was crowned Magnolia Queen at eighteen, which qualified her for the Miss South Carolina pageant, a Miss USA preliminary. She was first runner-up. Her parents sent her to Sweet Briar College in Virginia. But Summer had tasted glamour, knew cameras loved her, and loved them back with a reckless passion. She dropped out of school to chase fame and fortune as a model and actress. Played a trampy vamp on a daytime soap, her career high. But her character was quickly killed off, and in the decade since, DUI and cocaine charges had punctuated her sporadic modeling career.
    “Would you recognize the man Summer left with?”
    “Of course. I’ll never forget his face or those pale, ice-blue eyes. In fact, I saw him again this morning.”
    John did a double take. “When?”
    “After your partner decided to bring me here and chased off my cab. As we drove out the guard gate, I saw the Escalade. He had a passenger. They both turned to look. They saw me.”
    Damn, John thought. J. J. had arrived like the cavalry, just in time. “Did you point them out to J. J.?”
    “No.” The word had a hostile edge. “Didn’t seem important. And though I hate to say it, your partner, bless his heart, is rude and heavy-handed, a typical law enforcement officer.”
    “You see me as a typical law enforcement officer?”
    “No.” She did not hesitate. “I feel I know you.”
    “I know you too, girl. You trust me, Laura?”
    She smiled wanly. “My gram warned me about men who ask you to trust