Dead Man Walker by Duffy Brown Read Free Book Online

gaze boring into my back. Dishing out all that info wasn’t a great idea. I knew not to let the other guy know what was going on, but this time it couldn’t be helped. Shock and surprise was one surefire way of getting Dixon zeroed in on me and getting Reagan out of the office. If Dixon had found us who knows what would have happened. One gun meant he had others—it was the Savannah way—and I couldn’t take the chance of a bad situation getting a lot worse, not with Reagan around.
    I exited the front door of the club, the cute redhead at the reception desk giving me a smile, a little nod, and another look at my jeans that she seemed to appreciate a lot more than Dixon did. I took the steps to street level and phoned Dinky. I had a seven o’clock appointment with two men about their wives, Anna and Bella, and an eight o’clock tomorrow with an attorney from a big firm in town.
    My guess was that Anna and Bella ratted me out because I didn’t play nice with them and now I was getting the
do not mess with our women
speech. The big question was would there be gunfire involved to drive home the point. Then there was the meeting with the big dogs tomorrow. Those were never good, especially at eight in the morning. Usually somebody was suing someone with me in the middle.
    The only suing I had on the docket at the moment was a bridezilla whose fiancé walked out the day before the wedding. She was suing everyone in sight, including me for not getting big enough settlements. I tried to tell her she’d dodged a bullet and that her to-be husband was a jerk, but a rotting bridal bouquet left on my doorstep suggested she wasn’t buying it.
    I crossed over to Orleans Square, the fountain in the middle splashing away. I sidestepped a tour guide and her merry followers then Reagan yanked me down onto one of the stone benches. “What the heck do you think you were doing? I can take care of myself, you know.” She poked herself in the chest for emphasis. “I don’t need you or anyone else to save me . . . most of the time.”
    She was back in her shop clothes of capris and a blouse, her hair down, loose, looking like it didn’t care, her yellow-ugly perched on her lap. A grin slipped across her mouth, her really lovely mouth that . . . that I had no interest in at all!
    â€œBut I got to say,” she went on. “That the club application idea was inspired. Dixon nearly had an aneurysm in his own office and . . . it gave me a way out.”
    â€œYou’re welcome.”
    â€œToo bad we didn’t find the gun and IOU.”
    Okay, now what? Did I tell Reagan about the gun to scare her into keeping away from Dixon? If I mentioned the .38 she’d be storming back into the club to get it. If I didn’t tell her about the gun she’d probably go in anyway looking for it. “Don’t you have a shop to run?”
    Reagan jumped up. “Holy cats. KiKi’s going to kill me! She has a meeting of the Daughters of the Confederacy out at Sweet Marsh Country Club at noon. I got to go.”
    â€œThat gives her twenty minutes.”
    â€œKiKi’ll make it.”
    And that’s exactly what I and the rest of Savannah were afraid of.
    â€œI can drop you, my car’s across the street.” I nodded to the other side of the square where I’d parked the Chevy, top down, the perfect ride for a spring afternoon. I handed Reagan my phone. “Call KiKi and tell her not to panic that you’ll be there in five.”
    I started across the street, Reagan following and punching in KiKi’s number as a silver SUV barreled around the corner. The front fender grazed my side as Reagan yanked me back, both of us tumbling into the street in a heap, me on top, Reagan facedown, her blonde hair against my cheek. My heart stopped. My insides went to jelly. “Reagan!”
    â€œYou’re welcome,” she mumbled.
    My