Head Games by Eileen Dreyer Read Free Book Online

barely stopped slurping. “Shut up, Frank.”
    Frank gave Patrick one of his patented “between boys” smiles. “She adores me. I saved her life, you know.”
    Patrick straightened, his interest caught. “No. I didn’t.”
    â€œWrong verb, Frank,” Molly interrupted. “The one you want is ‘ruined. ’ You ruined my life.”
    â€œOh, you love me and you know it, St. Molly.”
    Dee raised a hand. “If you don’t mind … .”
    Molly decided that she didn’t want to try sitting again. It was too achy getting up and down. So she leaned against the counter, sipping at her shake and almost forgiving Frank for being Frank. Which happened every time he brought her junk food.
    â€œDid I hear you say you knew about the notes?” Dee asked Frank.
    He nodded congenially. “Yeah. Obviously somebody not as enchanted by Molly’s gracious nature as the rest of us.”
    Damn it. That made her grin again. “I’m not gracious, Frank. I’m stupid. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t keep letting you in the door.”
    â€œWouldn’t know anything about bones, would you?” Dee asked.
    â€œBones?” Frank leaned against the sink and shrugged. “Beyond the ‘thighbone connected to the knee bone’? Not much.”
    â€œYou had to mention thighbone,” Molly muttered.
    â€œYou like to paint things?” Dee asked.
    Frank actually looked appalled. “Paint? Me?”
    â€œHearts and crosses and things? Gold paint?”
    Frank lifted an elegant eyebrow. “You looking for somebody to decorate for the prom, or is there a question in all this?”

    â€œHe wants to know if you’ve been painting bones and flinging them over my fence, Frank,” Molly told him. “Please say yes. That would get everybody out the door and put you someplace where they can actually control you.”
    Frank, being Frank, was delighted by the insult. “Decorated bones? Hot damn. I knew if I hung around long enough you’d dig up some more excitement for me.”
    â€œMore excitement?” Patrick demanded. “What do you mean?”
    â€œSt. Molly here just loves a controversy. Don’t you, Molly?”
    â€œI do, Frank. Especially if it can put me at opposite ends of an argument with you.”
    â€œShe’s famous in St. Louis,” Frank continued. “Probably the most notorious death investigator in the country. Good Golly Miss Molly, they call her.”
    â€œDeath investigator?” Patrick swiveled his attention toward Molly. “You’re a death investigator? Like a coroner or something? How come we didn’t know that?”
    â€œWell, that’s the secret to your aunt Molly,” Frank confided. “She only gives bits and pieces of herself to everybody she knows. Then I guess she expects us all to get together at some kind of friend and family reunion in the park and construct the whole picture ourselves.”
    â€œIs that right?” Dee asked.
    Molly groaned. Not only was this getting way too complicated for two in the morning, she’d run out of shake. “Don’t listen to him, Dee. Don’t even make eye contact. You don’t know how dangerous he is to your sanity … not to mention your wallet.”
    â€œWhich is why I wouldn’t threaten Molly,” Frank informed Dee equably. “It would be anticlimactic. I’ve already sued her.”
    Dee stared.
    Patrick whistled. “You sued my aunt Molly?”
    Molly was sure she didn’t like the avid look in Patrick’s eyes, or the answering triumph in Frank’s. Two peas in a pod. Just what she needed. She was about to ask Dee to arrest them both just to give her some peace when his radio crackled to life. Molly was an old enough hand that she could interpret the mumbles.
    â€œGo on,” she said, waving him away. “You have another call. Unless
the detectives