Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery Read Online Free Page A

eyes and shuddered. “I must have, I guess. I’m not sure about anything anymore. I ran out of there so fast. I heard him call after me, so I figured he was pissed as hell. But he was alive.”
    “You didn’t kill him?”
    She didn’t hesitate. “No.”
    The door banged open, and I raised my head to catch a lanky young man shooting into the room.
    He stopped and pushed his preppy glasses up the narrow bridge of his nose. “I’m Brian Malone,” he announced, slightly breathless and flushed. He smoothed a palm over tousled brown hair and shifted his briefcase to his left hand, approaching the detectives with his right hand extended.
    When neither Lord nor Taylor met him halfway, he dropped his arm to his side and began to work at the buttons on a rumpled blue blazer. He didn’t look old enough to buy beer without getting carded. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but he was too fresh-faced to be more than twenty-nine, thirty tops.
    “I’m from Abramawitz, Reynolds, Goldberg, and Hunt,” he said and squared his shoulders with Napoleonic flair.
    The detectives appeared bored rather than impressed.
    So he stammered, “I’m here to represent, uh”—he pulled a folded slip of paper from his coat pocket and squinted—“Polly O’Brien.”
    Molly stared at me with round eyes.
    I tried to keep my mouth from falling open.
    This was the shark that J.D. had sent to get Molly off the hook for murder?

Chapter 3
    I stood helplessly as the detectives led Molly away.
    They were taking her down to the basement to book her for murder. She peered tearfully over her shoulder before she disappeared from my sight. A tremor shot through me. Goose bumps rippled over my skin.
    I turned on Brian Malone and hissed, “Don’t just stand there. Do something!”
    “There’s nothing I can do.”
    I wanted to challenge the statement, to curse his law firm for putting him on the case instead of an older man, someone who appeared to have actually spent some time in a courtroom, much less a police station, but I pressed my lips into a tight line and said nothing. No doubt his credentials were impeccable, or he wouldn’t be driving the carpool at ARGH, much less handling criminal trials.
    “They’ve got cause to charge her with murder,” he told me, giving his glasses a little shove. “Unfortunately, from the sound of things, they’ve got enough on your friend to lock her up and throw away the key.”
    “It’s all circumstantial.”
    “No, it’s not.”
    I tapped my foot on the floor, wishing I could cover my ears with my hands, not wanting to hear another word.
    “They have a witness who saw her run out of the restaurant at close to one o’clock this morning. The shopping center security guard watched her exit the back door, hop into her truck, and take off like Mario Andretti.” Malone ticked off each point on his fingertips. “He got her license plate, which is what led them to her so quickly. Did you know she has a prior conviction for writing bad checks?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “They got a warrant to search her apartment, and turned up a white T-shirt and a pair of sneakers with traces of blood. And they have the knife from Bud’s back, which is covered with her prints.”
    “Enough,” I stopped him and let out a held breath, feeling like a balloon with a slow leak. It didn’t look good for my old friend. That was abundantly clear. It didn’t hit me until then how deep in trouble Molly was. I’d imagined before that it was all a mistake, a fluke that could be cleared up with the right words, the right kind of persuasion.
    But that wasn’t going to happen.
    A man named Bud Hartman was dead, and all the evidence pointed to Molly.
    I felt a light touch on my arm and found Malone’s eyes on me, the pity so plain in them I had to glance away.
    “Maybe you don’t know her as well as you thought you did,” he suggested. “Your mother told J.D. that she was someone you’d befriended in high school. That you’d