Poisoned Pin: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 2) by Laney Monday Read Free Book Online Page A

“Wait, Sammi,” she said. “I’ll show you how I want you to start.”
    I stopped her. “Bly, just a minute. Watch this. Sammi, do that again.”
    She did it again, perfectly.
    “I’ve never seen anyone get it right on the first try,” Blythe whispered to me.
    We had Sammi doing all her falls beautifully—left side and right—by the end of class. I couldn’t believe it. Skinny, surly Sammi appeared to be quite a gifted athlete. How had no one discovered that before? And then I remembered the tall ballerina who’d stood out at the going-away recital. She looked so different in a tutu—not short and fluffy like those the little girls wore, but longer, more elegant, ladylike. She was poised, head held high.
    “Sammi?” I said, “did you do ballet with Miss Ruth?” I squinted, picturing her onstage, as that ballerina. For some reason, it wasn’t difficult to picture at all.  
    She scowled at me. “Of course I did. I was her best ballerina.”
    “Were you in the recital?” Blythe asked.
    “Yeah. That was before I dyed my hair.”
    Blythe’s face lit up like a lightbulb. “Your hair was a really light brown! You were wearing silver.”
    Sammi shrugged, pretending she didn’t care. But I could tell she was suppressing a smile. If I could get Sammi to carry herself with that kind of poise on the mat, to command a match the way she’d commanded the stage—this could be a beautiful, beautiful thing. Now, I just had to get her to stop hating me. Why did a girl who danced with such confidence and passion walk around slouched and uncertain? Looking, frankly, like she didn’t like herself very much and didn’t expect anyone else to, either? I wanted to know the answers. More than that, I wanted to get to know Sammi.

9

    I blinked in the bright, morning light. After a little over two weeks in Bonney Bay, Blythe and I still didn’t have beds. We’d both had queen-sized back in Arizona, and weren’t sure they’d fit—or be worth hauling—out here. My sleeping bag was in a messy tangle around my legs. I found the zipper, but either it was stuck or my fingers were still half asleep. Probably both. I inch-wormed a couple feet over, to where my phone rested on the floor, where my sleeping bag had been before I’d thrashed my way through lovely dreams of failure and humiliation.
    I picked up my phone and discovered it was dead. I popped in the charger cord, which was lying uselessly right beside it. Either I’d completely forgotten to plug the stupid thing in, or I’d knocked it loose in my sleep. Blythe’s sleeping bag was empty, and of course nice and neat, straightened out and smoothed over. I had it out with the sleeping bag zipper, and finally freed myself and stumbled to the kitchen. The microwave clock said ten AM. Wow, I’d really slept in.
    I wandered around the apartment, calling Blythe’s name. She must be downstairs. Working, or maybe having a nice, private bawl about our financial woes. If she had any sense, she’d be making a call to her old boss in Arizona, asking if she could have her cubicle back. But Blythe had always had more faith in me than I even had in myself.
    After I showered and dressed, I wrapped a towel around my hair and headed downstairs, to the studio, trying to come up with a good pep talk for my little sister. And wondering if the right thing to do would be to just let her go and bow out of this match before anyone got seriously hurt.
    I’d been so sure of myself when I planned this move. Until we got here, and from the very first day, things began to unravel. I wasn’t one to give up easily, but shifting focus from an Olympic medal to success as an instructor and small-town business owner was such a big move, and all the things that had gone wrong already had me rattled and wondering whether I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. After Jake, that is. It was hard to top that mistake.
    I headed downstairs to ask Blythe if she wanted any coffee. She hadn’t made any