Thrown Off: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 3) by Laney Monday Read Free Book Online Page B

thinking on her part? More than denial? Could that have been Roberta’s voice? It had sounded younger, but…
    I had to get out of there. “Roberta, do you think you could just grab that basket for me?” I pointed into the freezer.
    “Sure thing, honey.” Roberta got the basket, and I took it from her.
    “Is it too late to check out?” Suddenly I felt so tired. My mind was muddled, too. Had I imagined that young woman’s voice? Was I going nuts with my suspicions?
    “Well, we’re technically closed, but maybe they haven’t closed out all the registers yet.”
    I followed Roberta out to the front of the store. Every employee I saw, I pictured slamming that door behind me and shutting off the light, then driving the power jack into place to block me in.
    “Does everyone who works here get to run the power jack?” I asked. “I always wanted to play around with one of those. When I was a kid, I used to watch the forklift in home depot for hours,” I added quickly.
    “Oh, I think most of us here have used it once or twice. We need to move it out of the way for something, or they need another hand in the back. Things come up.”
    “Lucky.” I tried to throw off any suspicion about my question with a smile. I’m sure it helped that I really did have an interest in the thing.
    Roberta laughed. “Can’t say I ever really thought about that as one of the perks of the job.”
    There was still one register that hadn’t been closed out for the night. The checker gave me a weary look and hurriedly rang me up. I waved good-bye to Roberta.
    “You sure you’re okay, Brenna?”
    “Oh, yeah. Just fine. Nothing a hot shower won’t fix.” That, and finding the killer and seeing him or her put behind bars.

10

    I headed home, a grocery bag in each hand, still fighting shivers. The night was quiet, still. The breeze off the ocean felt colder than usual. I couldn’t shake an icy fear in my heart. I tightened my grip on the plastic bags. I was prepared to swing those bags and wallop anyone who attacked me with mint chocolate chip before I abandoned the ice cream and took them down judo-style.
    It wasn’t as if no one had ever attacked me on the peaceful streets of Bonney Bay before. I tried to tell myself the freezer thing didn’t necessarily mean much. Maybe someone was just annoyed about me being there, asking questions. Maybe they just wanted everything to go back to normal. With me dead. I just couldn’t shake that thought, no matter how I tried to rationalize that it was just a stunt. Just a rude gesture meant to send a message— I don’t like you , not die .
    A high sound broke the silence. I felt a pang of alertness, then realized it was just a giggle. A couple, just a pair of kids, stood against the wall behind the post office, in the shadows. The girl laughed, a tinny, fake laugh. Why did boys fall for those laugh-fakers? Were they that desperate to have a captive, adoring audience? Yes, unfortunately, they were. I’d learned that in middle school. Thankfully, a few of them grew out of that.
    I wanted to grab that girl and tell her not to dumb herself down for some boy. But for all I knew, maybe she wasn’t that bright at all. A skinny teenaged boy leaned over her and blew smoke right in her face. Disgusting. What kind of little punk does that? And what kind of girl would go running around with—
    “Sammi!”
    When she turned her head away from the smoke, I knew it was her. The little figure jolted and whirled to face me. For a second, it looked like she was trying to decide whether to bolt. But Sammi knew I could catch up with her even with my bad knee and a grocery bag in each hand. If she had any sense at all, she knew there was no hiding from me, either. But hey, if she had any sense, she wouldn’t be hanging around with that little creep.
    She shouldn’t be hanging around with any boys, not like that. She wasn’t even twelve years old, for goodness sake. I strode toward them and the boy backed