A Tale of Two Biddies Read Online Free

wind of Richie’s accident. Or my involvement in fishing him out of the drink.
    “With all the wind and all the rain and all the people running back and forth on the dock and yelling and trying to figure out what to do to save Richie . . .” Kate was so hopped up on adrenaline, she gave me a shake that made my teeth rattle. “You were the only one who thought to dump out the contents of that cooler he’d been carrying and toss it in the water for him to use as a flotation device. It was brilliant!”
    “It was a gut reaction.” Honest, I wasn’t trying to be modest, I just wanted to brush the whole thing off and get out of the limelight. “Besides, Luella was the real hero. She was the one who grabbed that fishing net with the long handle from her boat so Richie could hold on to it and we could pull him onto the dock. Good thing, too. That cooler would have started taking on water sooner or later, and it would have dragged Richie down with it.” I didn’t dare to think what might have happened then.
    “Good work, ladies!” On his way over to where Richie stood trembling in the puddle of lake water that dripped from his clothes, Hank Florentine, the local police chief, gave us a thumbs-up. He’d brought a blanket from the red, white, and blue SUV he’d parked nearby, and in the pulsing red lights he’d left flashing, I saw him drape the blanket over Richie’s shoulders and ask if Richie was all right.
    “I . . . I am now.” The temperature had dropped since the storm blew through and Richie’s teeth chattered. “But . . . but Hank—”
    “Yeah, yeah, just a sec.” Hank turned away from Richie and honestly, I wasn’t surprised. Near-death experience or not, Richie Monroe was easy to ignore. He might always be around, but in his own way, Richie was invisible.
    Hank wormed his way over to me and I found myself wishing he’d brought along another blanket. My T-shirt and capris were soaked from the rain, my dark, curly hair was plastered to my head. I used one finger to wipe the worst of the rain spatters off my glasses, plunked them back on the bridge of my nose, and wrapped my arms around myself just as Hank nodded. I knew that from him, that was praise pretty much the equivalent of a tickertape parade.
    “I heard you moved fast, Bea. Back at the station, they’re already calling you a hero.”
    “Just like in that movie!” In the effort to think exactly what movie
that movie
was, Chandra jumped up and down and waved her hands. “You know, Bea, that movie based on the book from that writer you don’t like, the one you’re afraid to read.”
    “FX O’Grady.” Luella supplied the name and I bit my lip to stifle a groan. “Bea might be quick-thinking and brave when it comes to lake rescues, but she’s scared to death of FX O’Grady’s horror stories,” Luella told Hank so he’d know what we were talking about.
    “Can’t say I blame her,” he said. “The last time I finished one of his books, I couldn’t sleep for a week. The guy has some serious psychological issues. And a freaky imagination.”
    “But he did that.” As if it would explain both the
he
and what
he
did, Chandra pointed across the road to the dock and automatically we all looked that way, too. Six months on the island, and I was learning that storms like the one we’d just experienced were nothing unusual. Lake Erie is the most shallow of the five Great Lakes and when the wind picks up, the waves can turn treacherous in no time at all. Add a dose of summer heat and humidity and it’s the perfect recipe for a quick-hitting thunderstorm. As fast as it struck, though, the storm was over, and now lightning flashed over the mainland to our south and the rain that had been driving and furious simply pattered against the gazebo roof.
    “He did that,” Chandra said again. “That guy in the movie. You know, the hero of the story where the vampires rise from their underground kingdom. The hero was trying to save his