Interior Motives by Ginny Aiken Read Free Book Online Page B

often, I’d fall into a light nap. By the time my alarm clock belched out its daily squawk, I’d become an overtired zombie. I couldn’t get my head around the idea of motion, had no desire to do more than roll over and try to catch some more of those evasive z’s.
    But reality was . . . well, real. Dutch and I had an appointment with the guy from the flooring supply place. I had to fake enough brain function to choose the perfect species of wood and then the right shade of stain for Tedd’s office floors. And, as always, I had to be ready to do battle with my nemesis, since agreement between us was a rare thing.
    Who knows how, but I made it to Tedd’s office before Dutch. I’d made myself a bucket of Starbucks House Blend at home, but partway to the meeting, I’d had to make a pit stop for a second, massive infusion of the stuff.
    With a sloshy waxed-paper vat in one hand and my trusty portfolio in the other, I collapsed into one of Tedd’s comfy if boring office sofas. The flooring guy walked in about three seconds later. The man responsible for the installation of the boards I was about to choose kept us chilling for about another fifteen minutes.
    When Dutch finally decided to join us, I gulped down my last swig of caffeine. “What kept you?”
    His look doused me with full-strength disgust. “Forget that. I have a question for you, and I think I know the answer already, but I’ll ask anyway. Have you read this week’s Wilmont Voice ?”
    “Are you kidding? Read the paper? Have you looked at your watch? It’s almost the middle of the night! My eyes don’t focus until nine o’clock at the earliest.”
    “I’ve noticed.” He held out a folded issue of our fair hamlet’s press offering. “Here. Glug down more java, make your eyes work, and read the front page.”
    I stuck my index finger in my right ear and gave it a bunch of healthy wiggles. “You know, Dutch. I remember we had this conversation about a year and a half ago. That time I was still in bed and you were on the phone. I could’ve—and should’ve—hung up on you and gone back to my blanket and pillow. Unfortunately, I don’t have that choice today.”
    “Go ahead,” he urged. “At least look at the headline.”
    I rolled my eyes. “I guess I’d better humor you—”
    The full color photo of Cissy Grover stole my breath away. A gander at the headline nearly did me in. It blared “Nurse/Companion Takes It All.”
    “Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh—”
    “Take the needle off the broken record, Haley. Read on down, will you?”
    “What more do I have to know?” I tapped the eyepopper of a headline. “This says it all, doesn’t it?”
    “Oh, I’m not so sure.”
    The taunt in his voice fired off all my alarms. But I couldn’t stop the freight train known as Dutch Merrill.
    “I recognized another name somewhere farther down,” he said, “somewhere around the middle of the column. Check it out before you say another word.”
    The sharp edge on his stare set my gut on lurch mode. I’d seen that look before. I didn’t like it then, and I liked it no more now. So I did as he asked.
    Great. Sure enough, there it was. My name. In black and white. The article placed me at the Weikert home at the time Cissy discovered Darlene’s corpse.
    He was going to have fun with this one.
    I wasn’t.
    I dragged myself up out of the chair and chose to defend myself with a hearty offense. “What are you up to, Merrill? Are you going to try and pin this murder on me too?”
    The unsuspecting floor salesman gasped. Dutch and I turned, glared, then went back to our . . . um . . . discussion. “Are you guilty?” he asked, even though I knew he knew I wasn’t, couldn’t be, no way, no how.
    “Go pound salt.”
    “Okay. Sure. But I’m dying to know how you managed to do it—again. Let’s see. We have a big, old house. In Wilmont— that’s part of the Haley Farrell equation, you know. Of course, there’s the interior designer in the picture—that