Burning Justice by Leighann Dobbs Read Free Book Online

supposed she could have been inside.
    I hadn’t mentioned the suspected affair to Hale and I didn’t tell Tony, either. I wanted to keep that to myself until I checked it out and was sure of it. I still thought Evangeline had been holding something back, and it wasn’t a good idea to blab unsubstantiated suspicions to the police.
    I needed to talk to the domestic and the husband … and the best way to catch them both was to pay a visit to their house. Since I wasn’t on the case officially, and I could hardly tell the husband his now-dead wife had tried to hire me, I’d have to think up another way to talk to them. Luckily, I had a trick up my sleeve that I’d learned from my neighbor, Lexy. Thanks to her, I knew just how to get access to talk to almost any suspect as if by magic.
    I raced back home, but this time I took the elevator to the top floor, passing my own condo and heading toward Lexy’s. The elevator doors whooshed open and the smell of sugar, cinnamon and spices hit me. My mind drifted back to when I was eight years old, baking Christmas cookies with my mother. I could almost taste the sugary frosting she’d let me glob onto the cookie and feel the crunch of the overabundance of sprinkles I would dump on top.
    Her smiling face swirled up from my memory and a pang of emptiness stabbed me. I missed my mother. I had precious little information about her death, but somewhere inside I knew that my father had somehow been involved and I was pissed at him because of it.
    I pushed those feelings down as I walked toward Lexy’s door. This wasn’t the time to think about my parents’ ‘case’.
    As she opened the door and saw me, Lexy's bright smile widened. Her silver hair was curled in a bun on top of her head, her full cheeks flushed from baking.
    “Cal! What a nice surprise!” She pulled me inside, then poked her nose back out into the hallway and took an exaggerated sniff. “Don’t tell me you could smell the cookies all the way down at your place?”
    I laughed. “No. Actually, I was coming to see if I could snag a batch of them.”
    Lexy’s eyes widened. “Oh? You have a suspect you need to interrogate?”
    I’d learned the trick of fabricating the perfect excuse to get suspects to let you into their house from Lexy. She’d used the same trick many times back in the day when she used to sleuth with her grandmother. I had to admit the simple trick of posing as if you were bringing a gift of baked goods, usually under the pretext of coming to relay your condolences, was ingenious. No one turned down desserts, and it was a great way to get them to open up and talk to you.
    I filled her in on everything that had happened that morning. Her eyes grew wider as I described the burned boat, and the evidence Artemis had found.
    “Yes, I should say you definitely need to talk to her husband right away. And that domestic, I bet she’s got something to do with this.” Lexy’s green eyes sparkled mischievously.
    “Right, so I figured the best way to talk to them both was to bring over some cookies and pretend like I’d heard about the fire and wanted to extend condolences.”
    “I’ll just pack up some of these cookies in one of my white bakery boxes.” She indicated stacks of flat white cardboard piled in the corner. “My great-granddaughter keeps me supplied with them. I think it makes a much nicer presentation when you put the goodies in a box.”
    “That would be perfect.” I leaned against her counter, my mouth watering as I eyed the perfectly round light brown cookies that sat on the little wire cooling racks.
    “Help yourself.” Lexy smiled as she expertly flicked open the cardboard, folding the corners so that it took on a three-dimensional shape.
    She didn’t have to tell me twice. I grabbed the nearest cookie and bit in, letting the sugar, pumpkin and spices coat my tongue with sweet warmth. “Thanks for doing this.” I mumbled the words around the cookie as I cupped my hand under