Bond, Stephanie - Body Movers 05 by Jill Read Free Book Online Page B

and the reasons why, then ended the call,
    shaking her head.
    Normally, she wouldn’t think twice about Hannah not
    answering her phone. Her culinary friend, who dabbled in
    catering—and body moving when Coop permitted—had a
    lot of men, er, irons in the fire. But recently, Jack’s
    profiling partner, Maria, had accused Carlotta of not
    knowing anything about her good friend. Carlotta had
    bristled at the allegation, but admittedly, it had made her
    curious about what was going on when Hannah couldn’t
    be located or made vague excuses to escape.
    She tapped some ash off the end of her cigarette, causing
    the charms on her bracelet to clink. She fingered them,
    shaking her head over the idea perpetuated that the
    charms on the bracelets sold by Olympian Eva McCoy for
    charity were not only unique to the wearer, but were also
    predictive. Her particular bracelet’s charms were a puzzle
    piece, an “aloha” charm, three hearts bound together, two
    champagne glasses toasting and a woman whose arms
    were crossed over her chest—which looked a little too
    much like a corpse for Carlotta’s comfort.
    If she looked hard enough, she could find connections to
    her life. She was trying to figure out the puzzle of her
    father’s guilt or innocence, for example. And shortly after
    donning the bracelet, she’d met Mitchel Moody, the son
    of June Moody, the woman who ran Moody’s Cigar Bar.
    Mitch was currently on military leave from Hawai .
    It was a flimsy connection, but a connection nonetheless.
    As far as the three hearts linked together, one might say
    that it could refer to the three men in her life: Jack, Coop
    and Peter. The champagne glasses…wel , she would
    certainly celebrate once The Charmed Kil er was
    apprehended…with someone.
    And the weird corpse-looking charm, she didn’t want to
    think about.
    Carlotta took a final deep drag on the cigarette, then
    exhaled leisurely while she glanced over the roofs of the
    quiet neighborhood. Where she and Wesley lived in
    Lindbergh, she’d grown accustomed to the boom of car
    radios and the scream of sirens. Here, the only thing
    disturbing the peace were suburban crickets.
    She squinted at a flash of something—light? metal?—from
    the house closest to Peter’s, which was slightly up the hil
    and partially hidden by trees. There was a movement
    outside a window. As she continued to stare, she could
    make out more details and realized that someone was
    standing on a terrace in partial light.
    Staring at her with binoculars.
    Unnerved, she walked back inside and secured the door,
    dismissing the incident as typical neighborly snooping. In
    light of Angela’s scandalous behavior, she suspected more
    than one set of binoculars had been trained on the
    Ashford house over the past few months.
    She suddenly felt very exposed.
    After washing her face and donning silky tap pants and a
    matching camisole, she snuggled down in the mountain of
    pil ows and set the alarm on her phone so she wouldn’t
    oversleep. She needed to al ow extra time to get ready for
    work, not to mention drive an unfamiliar car along an
    unfamiliar commute. While she was scrol ing through the
    features, her phone rang, startling her so badly she nearly
    dropped it.
    She hadn’t realized how skittish she’d become.
    But when she looked at the caller-ID screen, she smiled.
    Jack.
    She connected the call. “Are you calling to tuck me in?”
    His sexy laugh rumbled over the line. “Yup. What are you
    wearing?”
    “Sweatpants and big fuzzy socks.”
    “Good, that should keep Ashford in his place.”
    She sighed. “What do you want, Jack?”
    He made a rueful noise. “I mentioned that the GBI is
    coming on board The Charmed Kil er case.”
    “Yeah.”
    “They want to interview you as soon as possible.”
    Her heart raced—when would this ghastly situation end?
    “I can come down in the morning before I go to work.
    Eight o’clock?”
    “Okay.”
    “Jack, wil you be