Deadly Deceptions by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online

choice of everything from cappuccinos and lattes to cocoa and hot cider.
    All I wanted was coffee, damn it. Plain, ordinary, simple coffee.
    Again I missed my apartment and the chortle-chug of my own humble brewing apparatus. Heebie-jeebies or not, I was going to have to bite the bullet and go back. All this luxury was getting to me in a big way.
    I wrestled a single cup of caffeine from the sleek monster machine, with all its shining spouts and levers, and headed back to the living room, blinking blearily at the TV screen as the theme shifted from fat kids to Gillian Pellway’s murder investigation.
    Tucker Darroch’s harried face appeared, close up, then the camera panned back. He was wearing a blue cotton work shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, along with jeans and Western boots, and he looked as though he’d like to be anywhere else but in front of the sheriff’s office with a microphone practically bumping his lower lip.
    â€œAn arrest has been made, and yet the investigation continues?” the reporter asked. “Does that mean you aren’t sure you have the right man in custody?”
    â€œMr. Erland hasn’t been formally charged,” Tucker answered, tersely patient. “He’s being held for questioning.”
    â€œHe’s been in the county jail for almost a week,” the reporter pointed out helpfully. She was ultra-skinny—obesity clearly wasn’t rampant among media types—and wore a pink suit with a pencil skirt and fashionably short jacket. Her hair was blond and big. “Doesn’t that indicate that Mr. Erland is a prime suspect?”
    Personally, I thought she was standing a tad closer to Tucker than absolutely necessary. I get sidetracked by things like that.
    I took another slurp of coffee and reminded myself that I had no claim on Tucker Darroch. Oh, no. He still belonged to Allison, the divorce notwithstanding. While I’d tossed and turned in my lonely bed the night before, dreaming about dead people, he’d probably been snuggled in his ex-wife’s arms.
    I almost choked on the coffee.
    â€œMr. Erland,” Tucker said evenly, “is a person of interest, not a suspect.”
    Copspeak, I thought. Tucker couldn’t make a definitive statement regarding Erland’s innocence or guilt—I knew it, Tucker knew it and so did the reporter, along with most of the viewing audience, a few flakes excepted. It was all rhetoric to fill airtime.
    Translation: nobody knew jack-shit.
    The interview ended.
    The telephone rang.
    A wild fantasy overwhelmed me. It was Tucker, I decided, calling to ask if I’d seen him on TV.
    As if he’d ever do that.
    â€œHello?” I cried into the cordless receiver I’d snatched up from the coffee table.
    â€œWho is this?” an unfamiliar female voice demanded.
    I bristled, disappointed. “You first,” I said. “After all, you’re the one who placed the call.”
    There was a short standoff, and I was about to break the connection when the caller relented.
    â€œMy name,” the woman said, “is Mrs. Alexander Pennington. And I’m looking for Mojo Sheepshanks.”
    I hadn’t had all that much coffee. It took a moment for my brain to grope past Greer, the only “Mrs. Alexander Pennington” I knew, to the ex-wife with the drinking problem. I’d met her once at Fashion Square Mall, and her image assembled itself in my mind—overweight, expensively dressed, too-black hair worn Jackie O bouffant.
    â€œThis is Mojo,” I said, against my better judgment. “What do you want?”
    All right, maybe that question was a little abrupt, but it was direct and to the point. The first Mrs. Pennington knew I was Greer’s sister, and that meant she’d probably called out of some codependent need to harangue the trophy wife in a flank attack. It’s always better to be direct with that kind of person.
    â€œI understand