Fanny Packs and Foul Play (A Haley Randolph Mystery) by Dorothy Howell Read Free Book Online Page B

said, it’s probably nothing. But Erika, the interior
decorator? She and Patrick used to date.”
    I took a big gulp of my frappuccino—and I
definitely needed it. Oh my God, was this my first solid motive in
Veronica’s murder?
    “They dated—seriously dated?” I asked.
    “From what I heard, they were practically
engaged—until Patrick made that trip back east and came home
married to Veronica.”
    Oh, crap.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 6
    “This is b.s.,”
Bella said, peering inside her brown paper lunch sack. “Nothing but
b.s.”
    We were seated at a table in the breakroom at
Holt’s Department Store, the crappier than crappy place where I had
a crappy part-time job as a sales clerk. This was where I’d met my
ex-official-boyfriend Ty Cameron.
    His family had owned the chain of stores for
five generations, and Ty was the latest to be completely obsessed
with its operation to the exclusion of everything else—including
me. Thus, our breakup.
    Other employees were seated at nearby tables
eating, talking, or flipping through the vast selection of outdated
magazines. Someone had decorated the place with honey-comb turkeys
and paper cut-outs of pumpkins and pilgrims. Hanging next to the
fridge was a teaser about the mystery merchandise that would be
revealed on Black Friday—an old Holt’s tradition. There were other
posters extolling the wonders of the store’s current marketing
campaign, the Stuff-It Sale.
    Really.
    I’d worked here for about a year now and
Bella had become one of my BFFs along with Sandy, who sat at the
table with us.
    Bella, mocha to my vanilla, was saving for
beauty school. She intended to be a hairdresser to the stars and
practiced different styles—to be generous and because we’re
besties, I’ll call them unique—on herself.
    In the spirit of the upcoming Thanksgiving
holiday she’d fashioned a pumpkin atop her hair—at least I thought
it was a pumpkin. I couldn’t be sure—which told me Bella wasn’t
having her best day.
    Really, I guess none of us were having our
best day since it was Saturday and we were stuck here for hours
instead of out doing something fun.
    “What’s wrong?” Sandy asked.
    Like Bella, Sandy was around the same age as
me. She was kind of tall with hair she regularly switched from
blonde to red, then back again. Today it was somewhere in the
middle.
    Sandy always seemed to find the best in any
situation—which was kind of annoying at times—except when it came
to picking a boyfriend. She’d been dating the same idiot for as
long as I’d known her, a tattoo artist she’d met on the Internet
who continually treated her bad. For some reason, she didn’t see
it. She absolutely refused to break up with him—despite my repeated
attempts to share my oh-so fabulous good advice.
    Go figure.
    “Somebody stole my string cheese,” Bella
grumbled.
    She picked up her sack lunch and dumped the
contents onto the table. Out came a sandwich, chips, chocolate
cookies, yogurt, and string cheese.
    “Isn’t that string cheese?” I asked—I mean,
somebody had to.
    “I packed three,” Bella declared. “There’s
only two here.”
    “Are you sure?” Sandy asked. “Because
yesterday I was sure I’d put a bag of Fritos in my lunch but I
didn’t.”
    “Somebody stole your Fritos,” Bella told her.
“Just like they stole my string cheese.”
    “Is anything missing from your lunch, Haley?”
Sandy asked.
    “Besides flavor and nutrition?” I asked,
gesturing to the reportedly-ham sandwich I’d gotten out of the
breakroom vending machine.
    “What the hell is going on at this place?”
Bella grumbled. “What kind of person would steal food out of
somebody else’s lunch sack?”
    Sandy leaned in—sensing possible gossip,
Bella and I immediately leaned in too—and whispered, “Maybe it was
one of the new people.”
    We sprang into stealth mode, all of us
sitting back, darting our gazes around the room at the