Last Resort of Murder (A Lacy Steele Mystery Book 9) by Vanessa Gray Bartal Read Free Book Online Page A

the resort
will let you use a rocking chair so you can coddle her properly,” Frannie said.
    Jason and Michael exchanged awkward
glances.
    “Clint and I were thinking of
checking out the slopes to plan a skiing strategy for tomorrow. Anyone want to
come along?” Michael asked.
    “No, thank you,” Frannie said.
    “I’ll meet you there when I’m
finished,” Jason said.
    Michael and Clint walked away.
Frannie let out a breath. “That was unpleasant. I’m sorry.”
    “It’s okay,” Jason said.
“Relationships are hard sometimes.”
    “The death of one is even harder,
I’m afraid.”
    “I thought this was a trial
separation.”
    “How many times does that ever work
out? I’m a realist, Jason. Clint and I have stopped working. I don’t know how
to fix things between us, and neither does he. Worse, I’m not sure either of us
wants to. The best thing to do at this point is cut our losses and move on. At
least we made it until the kids were out of the house so it won’t affect them.”
    She was wrong, but Jason didn’t
think it would do any good to tell her. The separation was affecting Lacy. She
was hurting, and he hated it. Worse, it was the kind of wound that would only
get deeper as time went on. He wanted to fix things for her, but how could he
hope to do that when no one seemed to understand what went wrong in the first
place? He was a detective; it was time to detect. His instinct was telling him
something. Time to find out if it was true.
    “Frannie, can I ask you a question?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did the breakup when you were in
high school have any effect on your relationship now?”
    She took a moment to answer. When
she did, her voice was loaded with emotion. “I’ll tell you the truth, Jason. It
has everything to do with everything.”

Chapter 6

 
    When Lacy woke, the room was dark.
Kimber lay sleeping peacefully beside her, but not all was well in the room.
Someone was crying. In fact, two someones were crying.
    She sat up and saw Riley pacing back
and forth with Lucy. Both of them were bawling.
    “What is it?” she whispered.
    “I don’t know,” Riley said. “I fed
her, burped her, changed her, and she won’t stop crying. She does this every
night. Usually Tosh takes her for a while, but his evil spawn sisters made sure
that won’t happen, so I’m on my own. I’m so tired, Lacy. I’m so, so tired.”
    “Let me take her for a while,” Lacy
said. She expected Riley to argue, but she didn’t. She gently thrust the baby
into her arms and stumbled toward the bed.
    “She’ll need to eat again in a few
hours. Come and get me.” Riley fell into bed and was almost immediately asleep.
    Baby Lucy, however, showed no signs
of sleeping or of calming down. If Lacy didn’t get her to hush soon, she would
wake everyone else in the room, or maybe the hotel. She grabbed a blanket and a
key card and walked out of the room.
    As soon as they were in the
hallway, Lucy stopped crying. The light in the hallway illuminated Lacy’s face,
giving the baby something new to look at. She peered up at Lacy with rapt
fascination as if trying to memorize and catalogue her features.
    “That’s right, my hair is red. Get
used to it, soak it in,” Lacy whispered. She wondered if the fire was still
burning in the great room and headed in that direction. No one was out and
about, but that was fine by her. She was still wearing the pretty green dress
from last night, only now it was crumpled and sweat stained. Her hair must be a
mess, but with only a baby to see, it didn’t seem to matter so much.
    They reached the great room and,
much to Lacy’s delight, found the fire still burning. No one was there to feed
it, but it looked strong and healthy. Maybe Nordic fire elves sneaked in at
night to keep it going.
    She chose a seat close to the fire
and arranged Lucy’s blanket over them both. Even with the fire’s simmering
warmth, she was chilly. Maybe because her dress was sleeveless and sweat had
dried on her