Rum Cake Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 8 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries) by Carol Durand, Summer Prescott Read Free Book Online

of a girl perched in the corner chair, then back home to interrogate her boyfriend about the case and run out her anxieties with Toffee. She wasn’t sleeping well, and had no interest in food, even leaving the baking of cupcakes, muffins and cookies for the shop to Grayson, who had an incredible aptitude for it. Yet, despite her lack of appetite, she agreed to meet Chas for lunch at the local steakhouse.
    “I just don’t understand it, Chas,” Missy complained, cutting tiny bits from her petite filet. “Ben is still not waking up. I’m sorry, I know you feel that we should trust Dr. Aston, but I just don’t. He didn’t act like any doctor that I’ve ever seen. Even if we’re in the midst of legal action, he could’ve at least spoken compassionately about Ben.”
    “I’ve run into some top-notch doctors whose bedside manners are horrible. When Aston spoke with me, it was from one professional to another, he has no idea that Ben means anything to me, so he didn’t feel the need for diplomacy or tact, he just presented the facts,” Chas shrugged. “I’m sure Ben is getting the best care possible.”
    “Well, I’m not so sure. Dr. Aston was positively nasty to me, and I can’t help but think that if he’s so bitter about what happened to his daughter, he might just take it out on Ben. Isn’t there some way that you can check up on him? Maybe see if he’s made poor decisions in the past? It’d make me feel so much better if I believed that he was actually a good doctor, even if he’s a cold human being.”
    “Sure, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll do some checking,” he assured her, adding a dash of salt to his fluffy baked potato. “In the meantime, please just try to relax, okay?”
    Missy nodded and speared a green bean with her fork, nibbling the end of it. A man walking in with a thin, beautiful blonde woman caught her eye, and she realized that it was none other than Sidney Christianson, Loretta’s husband and the lawyer who was suing her on Dr. Aston’s behalf. “Don’t be obvious about it, but when you have a moment, take a look at the table in the corner. The man sitting there is Sidney Christianson, but I don’t recognize the woman.”
    Chas nodded, chewing a bite of steak. After he swallowed and washed down the bite with a sip of sweet tea, he casually glanced to his left and took in the occupants of the corner table. “Interesting,” he remarked, turning back to Missy.
    “What? What’s interesting?” her curiosity was piqued.
    “Well, I could be wrong, but if my memory of the society pages is correct, I believe that Christianson is with Mrs. Aston,” he said in a low voice.
    “As in Dr. Aston’s wife?” Missy asked, eyebrows raised. When Chas nodded, she looked over again, subtly using her peripherals. “Looks to me like they have a bit cozier relationship than just that of lawyer and client,” she whispered, observing the way that the couple was interacting.
    “That was my thought too,” Chas agreed. “Like I said, interesting.”
    Not wanting to be seen by the lawyer who was threatening to destroy her life as she knew it, they had the leftovers boxed up and slipped out of the restaurant unseen by her foe.
     

Chapter 13
    When the handsome detective dropped Missy off after boxing up almost her entire lunch so that she could take it home with her, she felt a bit better, and was oddly confident that Beckett would find something suspicious when he looked into Dr. Aston’s history, and perhaps that of his wandering wife. She went back to check on Ben and once more found Cheryl sitting, waiting, in the corner.
    “Do you stay here all day?” she asked the tortured young woman in the shadows.
    Cheryl nodded, responding quietly. “They’re pretty strict about visiting hours, but I stay as long as I’m allowed.”
    “What about meals?” Missy frowned, noticing that her clothes were baggy and her cheeks seemed sunken underneath the bruises and scrapes.
    “I’m not