Death of A High Maintenance Blonde (Jubilant Falls Series Book 5) by Debra Gaskill Read Free Book Online Page B

stories on the dead man in the creek.
    The probing questions of Chief McGinnis and the reaction of the man at the corner destroyed any confidence I had thought I’d built over the weekend.
    Times like this made me question the ruse I lived under. I couldn’t confide to anyone my fears over Gary McGinnis’s questions and the double take of the man at the corner. Until I could calm my nerves, it was best that I just hide. This afternoon, I had the excuse that I needed to research the story. As the newest reporter in the newsroom, nobody would think twice about it.
    As the afternoon progressed, I forgot about my fear of being discovered. Instead, I dug deeper into the bound editions, getting a picture of Jubilant Falls in the early 1980s, but little or no insight into the dead young man in the river.
     
     
    Chapter 7: Leland
     
    That woman at the corner, that couldn’t have been Charisma Prentiss, could it? I tugged thoughtfully at my beard as I walked back to my bed and breakfast, the Jubilant Country Inn.
    My search couldn’t have been that easy, could it? Those scars on her arm were horrible—but that face!
    It had to be Charisma.
    The hair was brown now, no longer blonde, with bangs hanging over her forehead. Did she hide wounds there, too? The even, high cheekbones I’d seen on the national news looked different somehow, but familiar. I caught a glimpse of more puckered, red disfigurement along her scalp.
    Clearly the woman, even if she wasn’t Charisma, saw my unfortunate reaction. Who could blame her for the way she’d spun on her heels and walked the other direction? I cringed at the emotional pain I, once again, didn’t mean to cause.
    But I was at least here in Jubilant Falls.
    The drive north from the Cincinnati airport hadn’t been too bad. I could see why Charisma (if the woman I saw really was Charisma Prentiss) would choose to begin again here. Once off the highway, I felt calmed by the green farmlands and the slower-moving traffic. As I pulled into town, I thought I’d crossed from reality into the set of a slightly worn Frank Capra movie.
    I passed a hotel by the highway without stopping to get a room: the flashing neon sign advertising the bar warned me off. Instead, I cruised through the historic district close to the downtown and found a bed and breakfast with a room available on a week-to-week basis.
    The owner pointed me in the direction of the Methodist Church, where I could find a daily AA meeting, and a diner called Aunt Bea’s for lunches and weekday dinners. On weekends, when every room in the B&B was full, there would be large family style breakfasts and dinners I could enjoy.
    My room was small and furnished with 1920s antiques. There were reproduction pictures of Abraham Lincoln in antique frames hanging on the flowered papered walls and a novel about Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg on the dresser. Across the double bed lay a quilt with rows of fabric flowers; a lacy white throw lay across the foot of the bed. A small antique desk and chair sat next to the door to my private bathroom.
    I flopped onto the bed and wondered what my next step would be.
    I couldn’t just walk into the newsroom and introduce myself—or could I? There was a possibility that she wouldn’t grant me an interview, however I approached her and I would return to my empty apartment at Fitzgerald House with nothing except a few summer weeks in a small Ohio town under my belt.
    What would I ask that I didn’t already know?
    What happened after the bomb exploded and Jean Paul Lemarnier was killed was the subject of endless news broadcasts. In an induced coma, Charisma was airlifted to the military hospital at U.S. Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany , then to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. After several weeks there, she was released to another hospital closer to her father’s home in Washington D.C. for further treatment and cosmetic surgery.
    The news went crazy with coverage, making Charisma