Saturday Night Cleaver (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #4) by Karen Cantwell Read Free Book Online

mail from my hand and leafed through the contents. “They sure burn the candles at both ends, I’ll tell you. She was up before dawn loading something into the trunk of her car.”
    Now I was the one to be surprised. “You were up before dawn?”
    “Woke up around four. Couldn’t get back to sleep. When I went to get a glass of water, I looked out the window because I heard something in their driveway.”
    Melody’s odd reaction to the saw inquiry took a backseat to my concern that Howard wasn’t sleeping well. Insomnia had been a problem right after he came home from the hospital, but I thought he’d been sleeping better in the last month.
    “Maybe they killed that guy whose parts you found in the woods—they’re sawing him up slowly and spreading limbs throughout Rustic Woods for the foxes to eat.”
    I slapped him playfully on the arm. “Stop that. That’s not funny!”
    He stopped smiling and grew more serious. “No, and neither is this—Clarence left a message on our machine. Colt was supposed to meet him yesterday for lunch followed by an interview with a reporter at the TV station for a piece they’re doing on local PIs, but he never showed.”
    Clarence Heatherington was Colt’s long lost son born out of wedlock. Sounds like a cliché plot trick, I know, but it’s all true. Clarence was also the new movie reviewer for Channel 3 serving the Washington, DC Metro area. Admittedly, Colt was way more than surprised—actually, horrified is a better word—that he had fathered a son he never knew, but he chilled pretty quickly. Despite the fact that they are as different as baby pandas and werewolves, Clarence grew on him, as did the idea of being a father. Fairly soon, Colt was taking a Bill Huxtable approach to fatherhood and it didn’t matter a hoot that his kid was twenty-eight years old. Clarence even lived with him for over a month while he hunted for an apartment closer to his job at Channel 3. And as for that interview, Colt also loved to talk about himself, so the fact that he’d miss lunch with Clarence and a chance to wax enthusiastic on all things Colt Baron, was a bigger red flag than his forgetting to make us tacos.
    This news was seriously unsettling. “I wonder why Clarence didn’t try my cell phone? He has my number.” I pulled the cell from my purse and realized I had set it for silent mode while waiting in the doctor’s office. Sure enough, two missed calls from Clarence. I didn’t listen to those though, because I spotted something that relaxed my knitted brow: a text from Colt.
    I opened the message.
    Time to start worrying again.
    The message read, sos.

Chapter Five

    “S OS?” I blurted.
    Howard peered over my shoulder. “What are you doing?”
    “It’s a text from Colt!” I could hear the distress in my own voice as it cracked.
    “What does it say?”
    “SOS! Didn’t you hear me?” I stomped a foot and began mumbling all sorts of half-thoughts and incoherencies. “S-O-” I started. “What does that-”
    I attempted a reply to the message, but must have touched the wrong button and I was sent back to my main screen. “Stupid phone! I can’t-” I clicked to view messages again, but my screen went dark. “SOS. Something’s...what is wrong with this phone?!” I shook the phone like it was a catatonic person that needed a jolt. Admittedly, I was out of control.
    Howard relieved me of the wayward device and clicked calmly, stopping to read the message, then clicking again.
    “What are you doing?” I asked.
    “Texting him back.”
    “SOS. What does that mean? He’s in trouble, right?”
    “Maybe, maybe not.” Howard perused through the menu and tapped another button, then placed the phone to his ear.
    “Are you calling the police?”
    He shook his head. “Trying his cell phone. If he texted, he must have it on now.” A moment later, he shook his head again, then talked into the phone. “It’s Howard. We got your text. Call Barb’s phone.” He hung up