Death on Tour by Janice Hamrick Read Free Book Online

with a happy smile and cheerfully opened the door for me. “It is not cool inside. I cannot leave it running,” he warned.
    “That’s okay. I just want to get my water,” I reassured him.
    The bus was stuffy already, but not too bad. Actually “bus” was something of a misnomer. WorldPal referred to it as a coach, a mammoth vehicle that resembled the inside of an airliner more than the clunky school buses I was used to. The seats were wide and comfortable, with upholstered armrests and levers that enabled you to recline just enough to annoy the passenger behind you. You could pull down a little footrest attached to the seat in front and actually get a fairly comfortable stretch. When the coach was running, icy cold air poured down from the air conditioner vents and soothed your spirit, almost making you forget the heat and dust outside. A coach was an insulated world in itself, not quite a magic carpet, but almost as good and certainly more comfortable.
    I found my seat and retrieved my backpack from the overhead bin. I didn’t really want my water bottle, but I needed an excuse to be on the bus and water was as good as any. I was really just seeking a few minutes of solitude, the one commodity in very short supply on a tour. I glanced at my watch and tried to work out the time difference between here and Austin. Three o’clock in the afternoon here meant seven o’clock in the morning at home. My ex-husband was probably just waking up. With his new tootsie by his side. I felt a little prickle in my eyes and blinked hard. What was the good of pyramids if I was all alone? Especially if anyone even remotely attractive had his eyes on Kyla and not me. It was exactly like being back in high school. A wave of depression washed over me, one of the aftershocks of the divorce, which I hoped would become less frequent and eventually vanish with time.
    I looked around, trying to find something to distract myself before self-pity ruined the day, and my eyes swept across the packs and bags in the overhead bins. On a tour bus, seating arrangements are very important. When first boarding, everyone immediately and inevitably marks their territory by placing some belonging on the seat or overhead. I carry a sweater for that very purpose. On some primitive level, owning your own seat is imperative, and any one of us would have been outraged to climb onto the bus and find an intruder in our personal space. I’d been on tours where the seat you chose the first day became yours for the entire trip. This occasioned discontent for those who were late and didn’t manage to nab one of the choice spots. Anni was very wise and made us move to a different place each day, ostensibly to give everyone a fair chance to sit in the front. In reality, she probably wanted to avoid getting continually hammered with questions from the same overeager few. There were always one or two chatterboxes on any tour. Millie Owens had been ours. In fact, she’d tried to nab the front seat for the second time in a row just this morning, and Anni had gently but firmly insisted that she move back. The fact that she’d ended up directly across from Kyla and me had been annoying in the extreme. I was a little ashamed about feeling that way, now that she was dead. Her empty seat seemed to reproach me for my callousness.
    Empty. Something about that didn’t seem quite right. Where was her seat marker? Nothing was visible on or under the seat across from me. I looked forward to the front seat, the one she’d claimed initially, and there it was. In the overhead bin lay the little pack she’d stowed when she first got on. Anni had collected Millie’s purse from beside the body and stowed it somewhere to be sent on to relatives, but she hadn’t thought about the pack.
    I considered it thoughtfully. I was still convinced that Millie had stolen a lip balm from my bag that first day she’d rooted through it and commented on my Imodium. With a glance out the window to