The Brush Off by Laura Bradley Read Free Book Online Page A

dusting powder over the plastic end of the brush in Ricardo’s back. My brush. A shiver slithered down my back as I forced my body still. Scythe’s eyebrow barely flicked, which I suppose meant I wasn’t entirely successful at achieving pure stillness. Or maybe he was telepathic.
    “There goes your motive, Fred.” Scythe dismissed his partner before turning back to me. “Your shop. Where’s that?” He pulled his notebook out of a front inside pocket of his sports jacket.
    “In Monte Vista, on the southwest corner of Magnolia and McCullough.”
    He wrote that down. I didn’t know whether that was good or bad.
    “What’s it called?”
    “Transformations: More than Meets the Eye.”
    His Bic stopped in midair, and his eyes shifted their focus from the page to meet mine. “Is that the name or a social statement?”
    “Both. Books have subtitles, why can’t stores? Beauty’s about more than what’s on the outside, although what’s on the outside can change the way one feels on the inside.” Except for underwear, I almost added, then stopped myself. I didn’t need to have that argument with Jackson Scythe. Not yet, anyway, I added slyly.
    “Whoa,” he said, holding up the last three fingers of the hand holding the Bic. “I’m not equipped for a philosophical discussion right now. I’m just here to solve a murder which, no matter how complicated, promises to be less of a bog than a beauty debate with a woman who could clearly outargue me from its every angle.”
    How did he issue a compliment and a criticism in the same sentence so damned smoothly? It effectively tied my tongue, which was well practiced in pithy rejoinders. I hadn’t been this self-conscious since high school. “You sound just like my aunt Mavis,” I muttered under my breath.
    Unexpectedly, Jackson Scythe chuckled. The skin along the nape of my neck tingled in response to the conservative rumble, the rusty essence of which made me think the lieutenant didn’t laugh often. That the fingerprint tech nearly dropped her kit was another clue.
    Scythe cut it short at her wide-eyed stare. He cleared his throat. “Sounds like aunt Mavis has her priorities in order.”
    Like I didn’t? I wondered suddenly if Jackson Scythe kept his cabinets organized.
    “Speaking of priorities, hotshot.” Crandall reappeared, lumbering into the room and pausing for a few juicy smacks. “You have to decide when to talk to the vultures. They’re setting up camp.”
    “Great. They can wait all day for my ‘No comment.’ ”
    “Ah, you gotta give ’em more than that,” Crandall argued halfheartedly.
    “The hell I do.”
    “We’re not really gonna be here all day, are we?” Crandall reached into the rear pocket of his polyester slacks and pulled out another piece of Juicy Fruit. He unwrapped it, slowly, reverently, as if it were a precious gift. Everyone in the room watched, except the fingerprint technician, who seemed only distracted by the unusual. Like that chuckle of Scythe’s. Hearing it again in my mind’s ear, I stopped my body in mid-shiver with a stomp of my foot. I was getting sick of this guy’s effect on me. He glanced at me and went back to reviewing his notebook. I couldn’t help noticing the cute cowlick where his wavy hairs met his neck. It was something he couldn’t see unless he held a second mirror behind his head, and he didn’t seem the type to do that. For some odd reason, his cowlick made him seem more vulnerable to me. Good girl, I thought, grasping at whatever worked to keep me ahead in the head game were were playing.
    Scythe glanced up from his notes. I smiled like I had a secret. He half hitched his eyebrow. Oops. I shifted my gaze back to a safer subject, Crandall, who was winding up his gum ritual. He wadded up the silver foil, flipped it over his shoulder, and added the piece to the wad in his mouth. It made me wonder if it was a continuous piece of gum, set aside at night like a watch, only to be popped back into