Pinned for Murder by Elizabeth Lynn Casey Read Free Book Online

friendliness,” she repeated quietly, the words bringing a smile to her lips. “I like that. I like that a lot .”
    “Hogwash is what it is,” Martha Jane snapped as she folded her arms across her chest. “Except for the pile of bricks. That one, at least, is accurate. Or was for about three weeks . . . before the founders ordered a new one on account of their feeling that six bricks represented strength better than three.”
    “The flames are accurate, too. The town did burn to the ground.”
    “By derelicts.”
    Tori bit back the urge to smile. “And the warmth and friendliness part? What’s wrong with that?”
    “If Sweet Briar were still warm and friendly, good-for-nothins like Kenny Murdock wouldn’t be robbing me blind.”
    Ahhh yes, the reason for this visit . . .
    Pulling her gaze from the hand-sewn flag, Tori fixed it on the dresser once again. “Don’t you think your money would have been safer in a bank? Where it’s monitored by people and cameras?”
    “I most certainly do not. Why would I want all those strangers handling my money when I could keep it here?”
    “Because they’re professionals and that’s what they do?”
    “Hogwash!” Yanking the top drawer open, the woman gestured inside. “See? I kept it right here. In the front corner by my socks where it’s been for years.”
    “Oh, I see. . . .” Poking her head over the woman’s shoulder, she took stock of a drawer that contained three thin stacks of pristinely folded shirts and sweaters. Confused, she looked back at Martha Jane. “Where are they?”
    “ Kenny took them. I told you that,” the woman hissed.
    “He took your socks?” She heard the sarcasm in her voice and rushed to soften its edges. “Why would he do that?”
    “Good heavens, child, he didn’t steal my socks. He wasn’t after my socks. He was after my money. The socks are right here.” With a push of one drawer and a firm pull on the one below it, Martha Jane pointed. “See? I switched drawers the other day and—”
    A sharp intake of air escaped the woman’s mouth as Tori’s gaze picked through numerous piles of white ankle socks before coming to rest on more money than she’d ever seen in one place at one time.
    She felt her mouth gape open. “Is that it? Is that your—”
    “My money, my money ! It’s safe!”

Chapter 4

    With a container of fried chicken in one hand and a bowl of fruit salad in the other, Tori stared at Rose’s front door. Had she been thinking, she would have carried the various parts of Doug’s lunch in one at a time, the availability of an empty hand making the entire process a whole lot easier.
    But she hadn’t.
    And the door was closed.
    Sighing, she looked from one full hand to the other, the ability to signal her presence with a knock all but gone. Then again, there was always a knee. . . .
    “Afternoon, Tori. Need a hand?”
    She set her foot back down on the front stoop, her shoulders slumping in relief as she turned. “A hand would be wonderful, Doug, thanks.”
    Doug’s nose lifted into the air as his nostrils flared. “Do I smell chicken?”
    Tori laughed. “Good nose.”
    He scaled the trio of steps that separated the sidewalk from Rose’s front door with one motion, his sky blue eyes shimmering with the sun’s rays. “I can’t tell you the last time I had fried chicken.” Grabbing the container of chicken from her right hand, he inhaled once again. “Man, it’s been months . . . at least.”
    “Good. I slaved over it all morning.”
    “Really?”
    She knocked on the front door, then turned back to the man standing beside her, her gaze drinking in every detail of his average-sized frame. Twenty-four hours earlier, when she’d first laid eyes on him, she’d found the guy to be rather ordinary, his face fairly nondescript save for the sky blue eyes that seemed to dance in the light. Today, standing less than six inches apart, she could see she’d been mistaken.
    Doug Hewitt was anything but