A Shattering Crime Read Online Free Page A

and carrying a clipboard shuffled into the trailer. “Yo, boss,” he said. He nodded an acknowledgment to me but otherwise showed no concern for my presence, or what he may have interrupted. “We got a problem with the backflow in the secondary pipe.”
    â€œDon’t suppose you could handle that on your own, could you, Fred?” Tony asked.
    Fred shrugged. “If I could, I wouldn’t be standing here jawin’ about it.”
    I got up from my chair, set the coffee on the edge of Tony’s desk. “I need to get going anyway,” I said. Not that I had anywhere I had to be, but because Fred had unwittingly given me an out and I was only too happy to take it. Pushing up on my toes, I swiped a kiss against Tony’s cheek. “I’ll talk to you later.”
    â€œGeorgia,” he said in a way that might have stalled me. But there was no conviction in his voice. No “wait” following “Georgia.”
    I waggled my fingers and hurried out of the trailer. Yes, I’m a chicken. Tony and I had been dating long enough to count by months rather than weeks—but only just. Still, given the duration of our relationship, it made sense that one or both of us would ask that anxiety-inducing question: “Where is this relationship going?” My belief that such a question could raise anxiety made clear my feelings on the matter. I didn’t know where we were headed as a couple. I was simultaneously afraid it would all end by the time the marina project wrapped and afraid it would progress to something more, something serious and even the slightest bit committed. And Tony meeting my family definitely skewed toward serious.
    Outside the door, the sight of emergency vehicles circling the party tent yanked me away from thoughts of my own meager problems. I might have issues with bringing my boyfriend home to meet my family, but the ambulance was a reminder things could always be worse.
    Family could be coming for a visit.
    *   *   *
    â€œG eorgia, did you remember to pick up extra toilet paper?”
    Grandy walked steadily down the steps from the living room to the space I had adopted as my workshop.
    â€œGeorgia?” he prompted.
    It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard the question or needed time to recall the answer. I’d only just begun creating a lead join between two pieces of crimson glass. With soldering iron in one hand and spool of soldering wire in the other, I didn’t dare look up and certainly wasn’t about to take the hot tip of the iron away from the lead wire. Once I started the process of running hot lead along a join, there was no stopping until I reached the seam end.
    â€œI remembered the toilet paper,” I said, setting the soldering iron back on its base. “I guess you didn’t remember that you already asked me that.”
    Letting out a deep sigh, he crossed the few feet from the bottom of the steps to the end of the table where I was working. He set both hands against the surface and leaned in. “When you get to be my age, Miss Smart Ass, see how well you remember inconsequential conversations.”
    I grinned. “Toilet paper is hardly inconsequential.”
    He huffed in response, tipped his chin in the direction of the stained glass piece. “What are you working on there?”
    Plucking at a corner of the glass, its pieces tacked together with strategic solder joins, I rotated the glassso Grandy could get at least a hint of the light-through-color effect. “Sun catcher on steroids,” I said.
    â€œAre those”—his brow rolled and rumpled—“poinsettias?”
    â€œMm-hmm.”
    â€œChristmas? It’s too early even for Halloween.”
    â€œNot in crafts and retail,” I said. “The more of these I can get into Carrie’s shop . . .”
    As the dog kicked up a ruckus upstairs, I let my words fall away. There was no use trying to