Drop Dead Gorgeous by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

to offer, and she didn’t care who she teased or slept with to get it.
    Lori had always been there, a friend. A ray of light, a streak of chemistry. Passion promising to happen. He’d never wanted to push anything, thinking there was something special there and the timing just wasn’t right.
    Bad, bad timing.
    But then, Lori had been with him when he was in pain. She’d eased the worst night of his life, despite Brad, her folks, and anything else that might have stood in the way.
    But she hadn’t really stayed with him long enough, and she hadn’t fought hard enough. He had left, but she could have found him, written, called. Instead she had fled as well, and they had gone their separate ways.
    “To you, Lori Kelly!” he said softly, lifting his glass. So long ago. So many women in between. Yet he wondered suddenly if there had been so many simply because of Lori, and maybe Mandy as well, and a determination not to get involved in relationships that mattered.
    He drank. Great. Miami was going to turn him into an alcoholic.
    But things here were strange. No, life was so damned strange. Mandy had been dead a long, long time. Now Ellie was dead as well, and Lori had suddenly—literally—walked into him.
    A chill assailed him, unlike anything he had ever known, and he finished the last of the scotch in his glass. Stupid, foolish. Bad things happened. Lots of bad things in a metropolis this size.
    Don’t go getting paranoid. There’s nothing you can do, and there’s no conspiracy, none whatsoever. Ellie was living a wild life, night- clubbing it, going out, looking for men …
    Right. And why wouldn’t Lori be doing the same things now that she was back? There was no reason a widow shouldn’t spend a few nights out, dancing, having a drink with friends, enjoying some music and dancing.
    He swore impatiently, rose, fixed himself another scotch. What the hell was the matter with him? Ellie had been murdered, and nearly fifteen years ago Mandy had been murdered. Well, he had supposedly been the murderer, so where was the correlation?
    He knew, of course, that he hadn’t even been near Mandy until Andrew had pulled her from the water.
    He shouldn’t have come home. You can never come home. Everyone know the old adage.
    Still, he found himself walking to the phone on the desk and dialing Ricky’s home number.
    “Hello?” Ricky answered.
    “It’s Sean. Lori Kelly’s in town.”
    “Oh, yeah! I heard. Her brother Andrew said that she was coming back because her grandfather wasn’t doing so well.”
    “Do you have a number for her?”
    “No, but I can get it. Jan married Brad, you know. They’re divorced, but still friends, and Jan kept up with Lori, found her a house. I’ll get back with you.”
    “Great.”
    Sean set the receiver back in its cradle. The newscaster had finally moved on to other stories, recounted with similar dramatics. Over the weekend there had also been two shootings and a fatal car crash.
    Tragedy was a fact of life. He heard horrible stories every day. But he had known Ellie. Known her as a kid, seen her laugh, flirt, play, study—seen her hurt, confused, smiling and in pain. And when you knew someone, and then saw that someone dead and naked on a stainless steel gurney …
    And Lori Kelly was back in town.
    They were all together again. It seemed. The survivors.
     
     
    R icky Garcia held the receiver in his hands for a long time. Ellie was dead, and Lori Kelly was back in town, and Sean Black was here as well. What a homecoming.
    He shook his head, aware again of the newswoman talking away on the television. Pretty woman, but melodramatic as all get out. What had happened to the simple facts?
    He hesitated, then turned up the volume. Just what were they saying about the murder? The media had a penchant for screwing up law enforcement here. As if it wasn’t a tough enough place already. Crack heads all over, pushers, dopers, gangs, mafia in half a dozen nationalities … and half the