Lie Down in Green Pastures by Debbie Viguié Read Free Book Online Page A

for.
    She tried again. "Max Diamond murder." Her heart skipped when a dozen hits came back but quickly sank when she realized they were all environmental websites accusing the land developer of murdering trees.
    It was pointless, and she glanced at the clock to see that it was past one in the morning. She had to go to bed. She shut down her browser and headed for the bathroom. After brushing her teeth she sat down on the edge of her bed and yawned.
    It was hard to believe that Dr. Tanner's funeral was the next day. Could it really have been just an accident, a cruel twist of fate that had killed him and involved her and Jeremiah?
    It can't have just been an accident.
    Accident.
    She jumped to her feet and returned to her computer where a moment later she was typing "Max Diamond accident" into the search window.
    Several thousand hits came back and she scanned them closely. There were a lot of articles about a handful of accidents on construction sites for property owned by Max Diamond.There were several reports of a minor car accident he was involved in a few years before. She kept going through the pages, something telling her that she was close to what she was looking for.
    On the sixth page she found it. There was a two-year-old article from a Nebraska newspaper about the closing of a land deal between Max Diamond and an area rancher. The rancher had tragically lost his wife the month before to an accidental overdose of prescription medication.
    Cindy printed the article and then searched for more information.She found a couple of other articles about the death including the obituary. None of them gave more information than accidental overdose. The obituary came with a photo of a smiling woman in her late forties.
    Max Diamond's words came back to Cindy. I won't let anything get in my way.
    She stared hard at the picture of the woman. "Did you get in his way?" she whispered.

    Cindy was miserable in the morning. Worse, she had no one she could talk to about it. As she prepared to go to the funeral service for Dr. Tanner she dressed slowly. She was exhausted, having finally forced herself to go to bed around three. It was more than just the exhaustion that was bothering her, though.
    Cindy hated funerals. The first funeral she had ever attended was for her sister and since then she had done her best to avoid them, only attending two that she couldn't get out of. Both times she had nearly collapsed, the memories from the first one overwhelming her.
    She didn't want to go to Dr. Tanner's funeral. Indeed, there was no reason for her to go. They hadn't been friends or known each other. They had been acquaintances who shared nothing more than a casual nod when passing each other. There were no people there who would need her shoulder. Most people there probably wouldn't know or notice her.
    But something deep inside her wouldn't let her stay home.She couldn't forget what she had overheard Max Diamond say in the pub. In her gut she didn't think that Dr. Tanner's death had been an accident.
    Even if that's true, what do I possibly expect to find? she wondered.
    She was wearing a black skirt and a plain white blouse. The only all-black thing she owned was a little black dress she was saving for just the right occasion. Such a fairy tale. Like I'll ever have a reason to wear it or anyone to wear it for.
    She was tired. She hadn't slept well the last couple of nights and she knew her mind had been fretting over the death, unable to let it go. She had begun to wonder if she needed it to be a murder to help make sense of it. Otherwise, someone having a heart attack while driving and crashing into another car was just one more horror of the world that she couldn't protect herself from.
    No one is safe ever, not anywhere.
    She didn't like feeling that way. Ironically since her two brushes with killers in the last year the thought had slowly started to control her less. Murder was understandable even if abominable. Senseless accidents,