With Vics You Get Eggroll (A Mad for Mod Mystery Book 3) by Diane Vallere Read Free Book Online Page B

like this?”
    “Same place I find most of my stuff.” I ran my hand over the turquoise and lime green chenille fabric. It had the classic lines of mid-century: low back, low hairpin legs. I’d found it at an apartment building in the area. An older gentleman had been found dead inside his apartment days after his dog had passed away. With no next-of-kin, it had fallen to the apartment complex to empty his unit and arrange for the donation to charity. As it happened, I’d walked by while three men were scratching their heads over how to fit a nine-foot-long sofa into a seven-foot-long truck.
    “Can I make a donation and take it?” I’d asked.
    “Fifty bucks and it’s yours,” one of the men said. I pulled three twenties out of my wallet and told him to keep the change. I professionally cleaned the cushions, replaced the stuffing with high-density foam from the local fabric store, and had the chrome frame redipped. It turned out so well I’d kept it for myself.
    Nasty tucked the corners of the sheet into the space behind the cushions. I grabbed the top sheet and flapped it open with a snap! The yellow cotton fluttered down to the sofa. I tucked the corners of my side between the cushions as well. Silently, we dealt out pillows, pillowcases, and extra sheets. After far too much time spent in the coveralls I’d worn at the Tylers’s house, I unbuttoned them and stepped out, leaving them in a ball on the floor.
    “Do you need to borrow pajamas?” I asked.
    “I’m sleeping in my clothes.”
    “Suit yourself.” I went to the bathroom, splashed cool water on my face to lower my temperature, and looked through my stack of clean pajamas for something suitable for tonight’s sleeping arrangements.
    Flimsy cotton nightgown—no. Chinese silk pajamas—no. Peignoir set—no.
    I ended up in a pair of loose fitting blue cotton drawstring-waist pants and a matching pullover trimmed in white eyelet embroidery. Good enough.
    The lights were out when I went back to the sofa. I went to the kitchen and set the timer on the coffee maker, and then returned to the sofa and slid between the sheets, lying on my side with my knees bent. I didn’t know if Nasty was doing the same. Once I was settled, she spoke.
    “I respect you for calling me,” Nasty said. “I don’t think I would have had the integrity to do the same thing.”
    “I know you care about him. So do I.”
    “He’s not who you think he is, Madison. He has a dark side you’ve probably never seen.”
    “Don’t we all?”
    “Not like his.”
    As I thought about how to answer her, I wondered if she was testing me to see if I’d blindly defend Tex. The reality was, I didn’t know him that well, and he didn’t know me well, but somehow, we’d made a connection.
    Lt. Tex Allen had first appeared in my life shortly after I’d found a body under the wheels of my car where it had been parked outside of the pool. That body had led to a murder investigation that had led to more bodies—all dressed in the style and likeness of Doris Day. Since I modeled my image and business after her and her movies, I had quickly moved from the person of interest category to the potential victim category. Tex had taken it upon himself to be my protector. His presence had been laced with an inappropriate amount of flirtation that would have made me, in my vintage clothes, old car, and Doris Day-inspired life, feel like a specimen in a Petri dish, if it hadn’t triggered an unexpected latent passion that had been ignored far too long.
    Two steamy kisses had been the only physical interaction between us. Other than that, we’d never so much as gone on a date. But somehow, through a routine where Tex occasionally brought me groceries or I occasionally dropped off an interesting item I’d come across during my days scouting for objects d’art, I’d gotten comfortable with him, and he, it seemed, with me.
    That’s why what Nasty said gave me the chills.
    Even breathing from her