Pineapple Lies by Amy Vansant Read Free Book Online Page A

mornings.
    Katherine continued musing to herself, mumbling just loud enough for Charlotte to hear.
    “Come to think of it…I think I set them up years ago and she’s the one who told me he was gay…hm…”
    “I’m sure I don’t know,” said Charlotte, her tone sharper than she intended it to be.
    “Are you talking about the dead woman in your yard? The one Declan killed?” asked Andie Davis, wading into the pool in her bikini. Andie was only fifty, but her husband met the age requirement by a good ten years. The other ladies eyeballed her outfit and exchanged disapproving glances. Charlotte always wore a one-piece to avoid such scrutiny.
    “Declan didn’t kill her!” said Charlotte, her voice growing shrill. “It’s probably his mother , who went missing fifteen years ago.”
    “Sometimes kids kill their mothers,” said Andie.
    “Like Damien Omen Two!” said Penny. “You can’t close your mind to any possibility.”
    “Damien is a devil child from the movies. Declan is a real person ,” Charlotte said as steadily as possible to anyone who would listen.
    “All the people on Dateline are real people, too,” said Penny. “And now they’re in jail!”
    Charlotte closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. It was a technique important to maintaining sanity in Pineapple Port.
    “Please play the tape, Jackie,” she said.
    There was a commotion at the other end of the pool and Charlotte turned in time to see several ladies scolding a man who had swum into their lane. She looked at Mariska.
    “I’m starting to think I need to hang out with people closer to my age more often. Y’all are driving me bonkers.”
    “I’m always telling you that,” said Mariska as the water aerobics music blared, the recorded instructor’s cheery voice offering words of encouragement.
    Charlotte lifted her leg out to the side and then put it down again as the others fell silent. It was the most strenuous movement in the entire routine. She wasn’t deluded enough to consider water aerobics real exercise, but it was easy on her creaky knees and it was nice to zone out and meditate when people weren’t claiming the local pawnshop owner was a demon child.
    In her mind’s eye, she pictured sitting across from Declan in Mariska’s house. She saw his green eyes, sparkling as he chuckled and the manliness of his chiseled cheekbones blending perfectly with the expressive wrinkles gathering on his forehead as he talked and worried. The top button of his blue polo was unbuttoned, revealing the v-notch of his throat and a smattering of dark chest hairs. On either side of the shirt’s buttons, the thin fabric hung neatly from his well-developed pecs. She wanted to reach out and touch them. They looked firm. She inhaled, smelling his aftershave…
    “What are you grinning about?’ asked Darla.
    Charlotte snapped from her thoughts.
    “Was I?”
    Charlotte looked forward and raised her other leg.
    “Nothing,” she said.
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
    Declan looked at the piece of paper in his hand then back at the ranch-style home in Pineapple Port. He’d received a call from Sheriff Marshall asking him to stop by and discuss the discovery of the bones, presumed to be his mother’s. The address on the summons was 115 Flamingo Court, just a few houses down the street from Charlotte’s. Declan knew the town of Charity was small, but he never imagined the police station would be a modular home in a retirement community. He checked the paper again, wondering if he’d misheard the address.
    This made Andy Griffith look like chief of New York Police Department.
    As he stared at the ceramic frog fishing in a tiny manmade pond in the front yard of the police precinct, a movement caught his eye. He glanced up in time to spot curtains drawing shut. Someone was watching him from the house.
    Spurred into action, he climbed the three steps to the door and knocked. He still doubted the address, but felt silly not trying if