Money To Burn by Katy Munger Read Free Book Online

early thirties walked into our office in downtown Raleigh. Her eyes were shaded by expensive sunglasses and she had soft brown hair that fell in waves down her back. She wore a yellow sundress with thin straps that criss-crossed her shoulders. If she’d looked any better in that dress, she’d have been wearing it down a runway.
    When she walked in, I was standing at the coffee machine, pounding it with the heel of my hand to make it drip faster than the maddeningly slow pace it had recently adopted. Coffee was more important than a new client, so I decided to let Bobby handle the newcomer.
    Unfortunately, Bobby was preoccupied staring at the black Ferrari that the woman had parked at the curb.
    I cleared my throat loudly and Bobby got the message. He roused himself from the depths of auto lust and rose from his long-suffering chair to give the woman a courtly bow. “Allow me to introduce myself,” he said grandly. “I am the proprietor of this establishment.”
    She slid the sunglasses down her nose and peered at him. “I want to talk to her in private,” she said, pointing a finger at me.
    I shrugged innocently, though I recognized her face once I got a better look at it. “Right this way,” I said, waving her in the direction of my office cubby. She looked like a nice woman, so I spared her the offer of any coffee.
    The visitor sat in my extra chair and slid her glasses up on her head. Her hair bunched in silky waves around the frames, a maneuver that I swear requires hours of practice in front of a mirror to perfect. She looked around the dingy room and her confidence faltered for the first time.
    “This is a pretty small office,” she said.
    “Bobby needs a lot more room than I do,” I told her, “as I’m sure you noticed.”
    She answered me with an uncertain smile and I saw that she had recently survived t tly surva serious crying jag. Her eyes were red and devoid of makeup, though the rest of her was perfectly groomed.
    “I saw you at the fire a couple weeks ago,” I said. “You were wearing a white dress and crying into a handkerchief.”
    “Yes,” she said in a voice that suddenly broke. She burst out sobbing and fumbled for tissues in her ostrich-skin handbag. I produced a box from my lower drawer and slid it across the desk toward her. We detectives are prepared.
    She sobbed out a completely incomprehensible sentence, her voice muffled by tissue and tears. Where are subtitles when you need them? I caught the word “Maynard” and took a stab at her meaning.
    “Did Maynard Pope send you to me?” I asked.
    She nodded and gulped for air, then threw her shoulders back with resolve. I waited while her sobs subsided. Eventually, she blew her nose with a honk that would have caused an entire flock of Canada geese to fall from the sky. Then she daintily dropped the offending soiled Kleenex in my trash can.
    “Sorry about that,” she said. “Thomas Nash was my fiancée.”
    “I’m sorry for your loss,” I told her. “I heard your voice on his answering machine. You were the woman flying in early from Savannah.”
    She nodded. “If I had only gone to his house from the airport, this probably wouldn’t have—” Her voice threatened to break again so I headed her off at the pass. Any more salt water and I’d start feeling like Kate Winslet in Titanic.
    “Your fiancée was murdered,” I told her. “If you’d gone to his house, you would be dead, too. And if the killer had failed the night of the fire, he most certainly would have succeeded eventually. Unless you set the fire, his death is not your fault.” I should have recorded the speech and played it back for myself.
    “Why did Maynard send you to me?” I asked when she threatened to tear up again. Maybe I should find her a sponge instead of a tissue.
    She wiped each eye with a fresh Kleenex and let her head slump back, trying to relax the muscles in her neck. “This is rough. I don’t know where to start.”
    “Start at the