No Nest for the Wicket by Donna Andrews Read Free Book Online

if we’d had a loss in the family?

    “The picnic lunch for the players,” she said. “You haven’t forgotten that our team’s doing lunch tomorrow?”
    Actually, I had forgotten. Perhaps deliberately. When Mrs. Pruitt had suggested that the three local teams take turns organizing potluck meals for all the players, I’d tried to veto it, but Mother and Mrs. Fenniman overruled me. They were probably still chafing that I’d insisted on limiting the potluck meals to a Saturday lunch by the Realtors and a Sunday brunch by the Dames, with my team providing supplies for people to fix their own breakfasts. I didn’t feel guilty—any sane person knows that a potluck meal always makes three times as much work for the person hosting it as for any of the cooks.
    “Right,” I said. “Though I doubt we’ll play tomorrow.”
    “You’ll still need to feed everyone,” the clone said. “Chief Burke didn’t want anyone leaving town.”
    “That’s true,” I said. “Won’t be as large as planned, though—the other four teams won’t be coming.”
    “Then the rest of us will just have to eat twice as much, won’t we?” she said. “Can’t waste all that potato salad!”
    Her clone nodded and they tripped down the steps to their car. The Briggses followed. Mrs. Briggs gave me a characteristically wan, self-effacing smile. Mr. Briggs nodded curtly, as if anticipating what I’d say to him when I knew the outlet mall wasn’t just a nasty rumor.
    Which gave me an idea. I headed for the barn and
grabbed my cell phone to call my nephew Kevin, the family cyber whiz.
    “Another problem with your computer?” he asked.
    “Whatever happened to ‘Hello, Aunt Meg, how are you, and is my little brother enjoying his visit?’”
    “If you wanted to be sociable, you’d e-mail or call after dinner,” he said. “It’s okay, Mom; it’s just Aunt Meg with another computer problem.”
    “Not a computer problem, a murder problem,” I said. “Don’t upset your mother; Eric’s fine and he didn’t see anything that would upset him.”
    “She says Eric’s fine,” he repeated. “I need to get on my computer to help her. Save me a piece of pie.”
    “I didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner,” I said.
    “I was mostly finished anyway. So what’s with your … problem?”
    I filled Kevin in on the murder, deliberately leaving out any gory details, in the interest of maintaining my reputation as a responsible and trustworthy aunt. He pried them out of me anyway, but luckily the details weren’t all that gory—not for a kid who’d grown up around Dad.
    “So what do you want me to do?” he asked.
    “See what you can find on this outlet-mall project.”
    “You think it’s connected to the murder?”
    “It might be,” I said. “It’s sure as heck connected to our property.”
    “Would it be so bad having a mall nearby?”
    “It’s not just a mall; it’s a contender for the largest mall in the universe.”
    “Even cooler.”

    “Did I mention that they’d be building it where you and your friends played paintball last summer?”
    “Gotcha,” he said. “Definitely a threat to civilization as we know it. I’ll let you know what I find.”
    “Thanks. About the murder—don’t scare your mother.”
    “Right,” he said, and hung up.
    I felt better. If cyberspace contained any information about the outlet-mall project, Kevin would find it. I’d also accidentally given myself an out if Pam chastised me for not telling her about the murder. I’d said, “Don’t scare your mother”—not “Don’t tell her.” If Kevin chose to interpret that as an order not to tell …
    Yes, I definitely felt better. Then I glanced at my watch and realized Michael would be home soon. I felt a surge of relief so intense, it was almost physical. His return wouldn’t solve anything, and I didn’t plan to dump my troubles on him or let anyone else dump theirs. But having him around made me feel less stressed, more grounded.