Dial Em for Murder by Marni Bates Read Free Book Online Page A

pang of guilt tugged at me as she swept me into a fiercely protective hug. I’d done that to her. I’d scared her speechless.
    Someone at the front desk must have paged Detective O'Brian because he sauntered into the waiting room like he owned the place. Judging by the appraising gleam in Detective O’Brian eyes after giving my mom a prolonged once-over, he didn’t see anything wrong with her looks. My already queasy stomach twisted in disgust. Detective Luke O’Brian had no moral qualms preventing him from scaring the living daylights out of a sixteen-year-old girl, which meant he was a complete jerk.
    In other words, he was exactly her type.
    “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs. Danvers,” he said smoothly.
    “It’s Ms. Danvers, actually, but you can call me Vera.” She released me from the tight clasp of her arms, but couldn’t seem to resist resting a hand on my shoulder blade. I must not have inherited my shaking hands from my mom, because her grip remained steady as she focused her attention on the jackass in front of us.
    “Well, Vera
,
I’m
Homicide
Detective Luke O’Brian.” His chest puffed out as he lingered on the
homicide
part as if it were possible my mom might fail to understand the gravity of the job unless he spelled it out for her.
    My mom blanched as she pulled me closer. “Is it Viktor?” she demanded. “Did he do something?”
    Oh god.
    I didn’t know how to feel. Part of me was pissed off that she even had to ask if her boyfriend was involved in something deadly. Furious that she would invite someone into our lives if some small part of her wondered if he might be dangerous. Another part of me was already sick of being forced to explain the events of yesterday,
again
, knowing full well that none of it would make any more sense now than it did when I’d spoken to Officer McHaffrey.
    Except this time I’d also have to put up with Detective Dumbass checking himself out in every reflective surface as he continued hitting on my mom. He’d also be waiting for me to slip up. To reveal some discrepancy between this explanation and what I said in the interrogation room.
    So I decided to keep the whole thing as straightforward as possible.
    “Remember how I told you I was going to be writing in Starbucks yesterday?” My mom nodded so I pressed on. “Well, Detective O’Brian here—” I forced myself to spit out the title, “believes that someone in a baseball cap tried to kill me.”
    My mom’s immediate hug was so tight that she effectively cut off any further explanation. There was no way I could speak when I could barely manage a tight wheeze.
    “Listen Vera—”
    But whatever Detective Dumbass said next fell on deaf ears, because my mom was running her hands over me, as if searching for invisible bullet holes or battle wounds. It was like she thought that the press of her hands would magically heal whatever pain might linger beneath the surface of my skin.
    “Emmy?” My name on her lips sounded so fragile. It felt wrong, like I had broken something soft inside her. She stared at me with her heart in her eyes, fear dilating her pupils until the amber brown of her irises were a thin ring of color around a bottomless pool of black.
    “Yeah, Mom. I’m okay.” I raised my arms skyward to show that there wasn’t even a scratch on me. “No harm, no foul.”
    Okay, so
that
was the biggest lie I’d ever told.
    Detective Dumbass snorted behind me. “Ms. Danvers, your daughter isn’t being entirely truthful with you.”
    My mom clenched her hand tightly into the fabric at the back of my shirt, but otherwise appeared totally calm. She was in her acting mode, which meant that she would control every single facial tic until we were home and she could decompress. It was like watching a master gambler put on a poker face after being dealt a particularly crappy hand.
    “I thought we agreed you’d call me Vera.”
    I wanted to puke.
This
was the reason I preferred the dialogue in my