Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 04 - Miami Mummies by Barbara Silkstone Read Free Book Online

safe deposit box on the chain around my neck. Peering peripherally at the granny in the seat next to me I got an uneasy feeling. She had a MacGuffinish look about her.
    I meant to ask Hic about his so-called spirit guide. I’d have to call him because the next time I saw him it would be too late. I shuddered at the thought of rotating his body in his rocking chair. Norman freaking Bates.
    Dashing ahead of my fellow passengers I made it up the congested corridor with two cravings calling to me, neither of which was mango ice cream. An unopened gift bottle of Johnny Walker Black waited in my kitchen bar cabinet. A couple of slugs of scotch and a long hot shower would put me right with the world. I imagined the water cascading over my semi-drunken body.
    I speed-dialed Hic. It went straight to voicemail. C’mon Hic, turn your phone on. I need to know about MacGuffin. I left the secure area and crested the first carpeted incline, rolling my wheelie-bag behind me. I felt something that could either be the barrel of a gun or an exceptionally high hard-on poking me between my shoulder blades.
    “Don’t turn around.”
    The voice was young and male but muffled like he was trying to disguise his voice. Did I know him?
    Ignoring his threat, I twisted my head to the left, gun-guy moved to the right. “You don’t listen well,” he snarled.
    My first thought, protect the key. I covered it with my left hand and shot my right elbow into his solar plexus. He omphed. I looked back. He was gone, but a wave of deplaning flight-zombies threatened to bury me.
    “Listen, bitch. Stay away from the Henman project.”
    The barrel of the gun was firm against my spine. He was behind me again. How’d he do that?
    “Coward!” I kicked backward with my right foot hoping to trip him, and gambling he wouldn’t pull the trigger in front of a thousand witnesses. Not my brightest move. I nailed his shin. He shoved me. I toppled over my bag.
    “You’ve been warned!”
    He ducked through the crowd and disappeared, but not before I caught a glimpse of his face.
    Two twentyish girls came to my aid, lifting me by my elbows. I felt like an old klutz.
    “An ex?” the taller girl asked.
    I nodded. Sometimes a white lie is easier.
    “I hate when they do that,” the shorter one said.
    I thanked them but part of my brain was sorting out gun-guy’s face. I knew him from somewhere.
    With my keys in my fist, sharp edges between my fingers, I marched to the South Terminal parking deck. The sight of Detective Sargent Farley Stranger leaning on Goldie confirmed my life was headed in the wrong direction on a dead end street.
    Stranger stood out like a cartoon Don Johnson with a rumpled teal sport coat, white trousers, white loafers, and a ten o’clock shadow.
    “You look like the woman I told not to leave town,” he growled. His amber eyes were two slits of pissed off.
    I decided to play to his cop-ness. “Stranger! I mean, Detective Stranger, I was just gunned. I mean threatened with a gun. At least I think it was a gun.”
    “If you stayed in town it wouldn’t have happened.”
    I motioned with my head toward the terminal. “I am in town. Some guy told me to stay away from the Henman case and then he pushed me with his gun, well not his gun but he had a gun.”
    “Henman case ? Interesting choice of words. You have more to do with the parking lot stabbing than you’re letting on. You were in Nashville. Why?”
    No sense in sharing the reincarnation story. “Met with an old client, Alfred Hiccup.”
    “The eccentric billionaire?”
    “You have no idea.” I thought of the cot.
    “Ms. Henman received a bloody tomahawk this morning. Know anything about it?” He gave me the stink eye.
    “How about you send someone to look in the airport for a young guy with a gun in his pocket, then we’ll talk.” As the words spilled out of my mouth, I realized how stupid my suggestion sounded.
    I shook my head. “Can I get in my car? I’m really