Acts of Violets Read Online Free Page B

Nikki said, stepping through the doorway. “Let’s go pig out on elephant ears. Oh, sorry. Hello, Greg. Did I interrupt something?”
    That was Nikki’s attempt to rescue me.
    “We were just making lunch plans,” Morgan replied. “Want to join us?” That was Morgan’s attempt to surround himself with women; the more the merrier.
    “Sorry, I’m on a diet,” Nikki replied instantly; then, realizing she’d contradicted herself, she added, “The elephant ear diet.” She glanced at me with a shrug, as if to say, Hey, I tried.
    Suddenly, a police car sped up Indiana Street, behind the courthouse, and screeched to a stop in front of the police station. The cops hopped out, opened the rear door on the passenger side, and pulled out a snarling clown with orange hair, a red nose, and an armful of cucumbers.
    “Hey, that’s Snuggles,” Nikki exclaimed, causing Lottie and her customers to crane their necks for a look.
    It seemed there was justice in this world, after all.

CHAPTER THREE

    “ I s Snuggles a friend of yours?” Morgan asked Nikki with a snicker.
    She gave him a glance that was at once sultry and withering. “I’m not into evil clowns this week, Greg. For your information, Snuggles threatened Abby this morning during the parade.”
    Morgan’s blue eyes widened as he—and Lottie’s customers—turned to stare at me. “He threatened you? Why?”
    “Because I was bumped off the curb into his path, knocking him off his unicycle,” I explained.
    “What did he say to you?” Morgan asked.
    “That he knew I did it on purpose, that he had my number, and that paybacks are murder.” I left out the part about Snuggles calling me shorty. It was a sore spot.
    Morgan’s shocked expression gave me a possible way to escape having lunch with him—the pity party. “Yes,” I said, heaving a tremulous sigh, “the whole scene was upsetting, which is why I don’t have much of an appetite, so maybe we can do lun—”
    Throwing back his shoulders to look important, Morgan strode toward the police station, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll find out what happened and be right back; then we can grab some food.”
    “Great. You do that.” I stepped into the shop and motioned for Nikki to follow. “When Morgan comes back, get the scoop for me.”
    “Where will you be?” she asked as I started toward the curtain to the workroom.
    “Hiding.”
    “So I’m your sacrificial lamb? No way. If you don’t want to have lunch with Morgan, just tell him straight out.”
    “I can’t do that. Morgan is my contact at the courthouse. If I tick him off, the next time I need information I’ll be out of luck. Besides, I want to phone Marco. I have a feeling he was somehow involved in Snuggles’s arrest. Just get the story from Morgan, then tell him I had to go to the . . .” What could I use as an excuse? The bathroom? He’d wait. The ER for a broken ankle? Hard to pull that off unless I wore a cast for the next six weeks.
    I glanced over to the doorway of the coffee parlor to see my other assistant, Grace Bingham, watching me with the sage expression and statesmanlike pose that signaled she was on the verge of delivering a lecture, which usually began with a quotation. Grace was a trim, active, sixty-year-old widowed Brit who’d had many careers, including librarian and legal secretary. She spoke with a lovely, crisp accent and operated under the assumption that she could mold me into the perfect human being by bombarding me with insightful sayings. So far, it hadn’t helped, but she wasn’t the type to give up without a fight.
    Working with Grace was one of the joys of owning Bloomers. How lucky for me that just when I’d needed someone to run the coffee and tea parlor, Grace had retired from her job as legal secretary for Dave Hammond (the lawyer for whom I had clerked one summer) and was looking for something to do. Since she was an expert tea brewer, a whiz on the coffee machines, and a top-notch scone baker,