Death By Bourbon by Abigail Keam Read Free Book Online Page A

move in
     on Jake. When that didn’t work, you obviously moved on to Matt.”
    “I’m impressed. How do you know about Jake? Did he tell you?”
    “You mentioned one of Jake’s tattoos some months ago at the Morris Book Shop. You
     can only see that tattoo if he is . . . unclothed. My guess is that you came to the
     house when you knew I would be napping and caught him unaware in the pool or the outdoor
     shower. He told you to go to the Devil, didn’t he, Meriah?”
    “Touché,” cooed Meriah. “You have a very good analytical mind. I do like the exotic,
     but I got turned down flat. It rather hurt my pride. But I didn’t go after Matt. He
     came after me. It was during your party for Franklin when I choked on that woman’s
     awful glass eye and Matt saved me. Later that night, he called me up for a date and
     things proceeded from there. Now that’s the truth.”
    “Matt called you up?”
    “Yes. He was handsome. He was single. He asked me out to dinner. I was bored so I
     went. We had a good time. He asked me out again. I went again. Matt pursued this.
     Not me.”
    I didn’t reply. Actually I was rather stumped, but I shouldn’t have been. Matt had
     been struggling for a long time.
    “Do you love him?”
    “You are right to think that I am a selfish woman. I am. But Matt is as ambitious
     as I am. We have the same goals. We will work well together as partners because as
     ambitious as Matt is, he’s very old school. He will rub the rough edges off me.”
    “You’re hoping that Matt will make a lady out of you?”
    “No. I’m hoping that he will make me kind.”
    I gave Meriah a long hard look. She was a drowning woman clutching onto the only thing
     floating in the ocean. She was looking to Matt to save her from herself. I understood.
     I was doing the same with Jake. When the possibility of happiness comes your way,
     you grab onto it. It was human nature.
    “Okay,” I said.
    “Okay what?”
    “A truce. I won’t interfere and I wish you both happiness. If this is what Matt wants,
     then I want it for him.”
    Meriah sighed. “Thank you. Your acceptance will make things easier for Matt.”
    “Where will you live?”
    “We are going back to my house in California after we are married. Matt already has
     a job offer in a good law firm there. He’ll fit right in.”
    “I see.”
    Nothing stayed the same forever. I had to accept it.
    “Now that is resolved, I want to mention something that has been troubling me.”
    “Oh?”
    “It’s about Doreen DeWitt.”
    “Go ahead.” My mind was still reeling from the fact that Matt was going to move across
     the country, but I would give Doreen a go.
    “Was there anything that troubled you about Addison DeWitt’s death?”
    “I got a creepy feeling that night.” I searched for the right words. “Something seemed
     icky about the entire situation.”
    “Icky? A former college professor like you uses the word icky?”
    “I think icky describes accurately what I was feeling.”
    Meriah pushed back her honey-streaked hair. “I was feeling something icky too, but
     about Doreen. When we heard the commotion, I was first out the door as I was the closest.
     Doreen was way on the other side of the room. She would have been one of the last
     to enter the hallway.” She paused for a moment and then went to stand in her own doorway.
     “Now I stopped right in the doorway, didn’t I?”
    “I guess so. I was really paying attention to Addison.”
    “Well, I did. You even said so the other night. Now I stood in the doorway with a
     couple of other women who were not Doreen DeWitt.”
    “Okay.”
    “Now out of nowhere, Doreen pushes through and runs over to Addison DeWitt.”
    “That I remember,” I concurred.
    “Here’s what is icky. How did she know it was Addison on the floor? I am taller than
     she but I couldn’t see who was on the floor because the couch was in the way as were
     men also blocking my view.”
    “That’s right. I had to