Scrapped by Mollie Cox Bryan Read Free Book Online

looked at her with her eyebrows lifted.
    “It seems to be getting personal.”
    “What do you mean, personal? Personal for who?”
    “For me. The phone call I received in the middle of the night? It wasn’t from the detective. It was from someone else, someone who wanted to make sure I was there.”
    “You told the police that, didn’t you?”
    “Bryant knows. They are going to put a device on my phone,” she said, opening the refrigerator, grabbing the milk. “It was a compromise. He wanted to post guards at my house. I don’t need Cumberland Creek’s finest hanging around my house. I want some time to unravel this before my life gets completely turned upside down.”
    “That’s foolish,” Beatrice said. “C’mon.”
    Annie had just started to speak when the doorbell rang.
    “Yoo-hoo,” came Cookie’s voice as she entered. She looked from Beatrice to Annie. “What’s going on? I feel like I’ve walked into a hornet’s nest.”

Chapter 11
    Annie was working on Ben’s soccer book. She was thrilled that Sheila had finally gotten in the soccer ball embellishments she’d ordered a couple of weeks ago. She placed the ball on the corner of the photo. Her oldest son with that grin on his face, holding a ball. She loved it. This was one way her boys were fitting in—with their athleticism.
    Annie took a long sip of her beer and thought about this group of women who were her friends. Sheila, with her morning runs and scrapbooking business, everything in her home and life so precise, except for her own grooming; DeeAnn, with the hands and heart of a baker, always finding a reason to laugh; Paige, with her tie-dyed hippie clothes and decidedly un-hippie lifestyle; and Vera, always a little too made up, a butterfly stronger than stone. Cookie, the outsider that everybody adored, was caught up in some shimmery paper across the table.
    “Oh, isn’t that beautiful!” DeeAnn exclaimed over a scrapbook page that Cookie was working on.
    Annie glanced away from her boy’s photo on the page to Cookie’s white slender fingers holding the paper. It was just like DeeAnn to get excited over a shiny thing.
    “It’s for my book of shadows,” Cookie explained.
    “Your what?” Annie said.
    “A book of shadows is a witch’s journal. I keep track of things and write about rituals and moon phases. My observations. Stuff like that,” she said. “My other one is getting kind of used and full. I thought I might start a new one, using some scrapbook techniques.”
    “I love that glitter paper,” DeeAnn said, holding out some nachos with her homemade salsa. “Have you tried this?”
    “Now, be careful. I don’t want salsa spilling. Take it over to the snack table, please,” Sheila said.
    DeeAnn rolled her eyes but did what she was told. Food and precious photos didn’t mix well.
    Annie went back to her soccer book, sipping her beer. Beer and scrapbooking had become synonymous with her Saturday nights. If her old friends in D.C. could see her now.
    “I wonder what Vera is doing right now,” Sheila said and giggled.
    “One thing she’s not doing is this,” DeeAnn said.
    “Oh, it’s a good thing we have Vera and her sex life to talk about,” Paige said, fussing over the Cricut personal cutting machine. “None of the rest of us old married ladies get much sex.”
    That’s what you think, Annie thought.
    “That’s because our husbands are too tired from work. What does that Tony guy do with himself, anyway?” DeeAnn said, scooping up more salsa. Her large hands dwarfed the salsa jar.
    “God only knows,” Sheila said. “He’s teaching dance somewhere, I suppose. Chelsea Dance?”
    Again, it became very quiet. The spurts of quiet were probably what Annie liked the most about their gatherings. They could be quiet among themselves, and it wasn’t a problem. DeeAnn was working on a scrap cookbook; Paige was working on her niece’s wedding scrapbook; Sheila was scrapbooking her daughter Donna’s senior