Braking for Bodies Read Online Free Page A

and jacket, huffing and puffing on a red bike? No one would ever question Zo’s favorite color, but it was nice to have some company in the huffing and puffing department.
    My great plan was to switch the dresses with Idle before I had an ulcer from messing this up, and then I’d drop off the bike at Heaven Sent. There were no addresses on the island, just names of shops and the behemoth Victorian cottages like Edgewood, Lakecliff, and Over-the-Glen that suited Daddy Warbucks way more than Goldilocks.
    The white porch of the Grand Hotel was a Ripley’s Believe It or Not two football fields long and lined with twenty-five hundred of the biggest, reddest geraniums on earth. Tonight the air was still a bit chilly for socializing outside, so most of the action was inside. “Saint Louis Blues” wafted from the open French doors, and carriages crowded the main entrance with people coming and going. I pedaled around back of the hotel to find a less congested path to park, struggled past the recycle and trash bins, then held tight to the handlebars and started down the other side.
    God bless down! Shadowy bushes and plantswhizzed by as I flew around toward the front of the hotel, the only light shining down from the porch above. Lilacs and more geraniums lined the path on one side, the hotel shops on the lower level were now closed on the other side of me and . . . and something big and dark and sort of blue was smack in front of me. A garbage bag? A big garbage bag! The Grand Hotel did not put their garbage out front. What the—
    Brakes! Holy criminy, brakes! I jammed the pedals into reverse, front tire skidding, back tire fishtailing, as the momentum carried me forward and flipped me over the handlebars. I slammed into the Brides and Bliss box; it sailed off into the night and I landed with a solid
oomph
on top of the bag. Sherlock tumbled onto my back, a pedal wedged where no pedal had any right to be. I lay there for a second, my tongue counting teeth, the little bones in my spine realigning.
    Landing on garbage was not a high point in my life, I’ll give you that, but the squishiness kept me from looking like skinned roadkill. The bag smelled like salad . . . Italian? Personally I thought it needed more oregano. I blinked open one eye and spotted the Brides and Bliss box to one side, the yellow rhinestone dress dangling from a lilac bush.
    I blinked open the other eye and stared at the Peepster, his face inches from mine. His eyes were open too, but they weren’t staring back at me. They weren’t anything. They were cold, vacant anddead.

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    D ead? No! I blinked a few times and refocused. The Peepster had a deep gash across his forehead and there was blood.
    Yes, dead! Yikes! Forgetting teeth and bones, I shoved Sherlock off into the grass and scrambled to my feet, trying really hard not to scream. Bloomfields did not scream. A whimper now and then if things got a bit hairy, but that was it. I stumbled backward and slipped and fell on my butt. Life was not improving. I pulled Sheldon from my back pocket, prayed my landing hadn’t smashed him to smithereens and hit speed dial.
    â€œGot the dress?” Sutter said from the other end.
    â€œGot a problem.”
Breathe, Evie, breathe.
“Path on west side of the Grand. Meet me.” I disconnected andgulped in air. I focused on the lilac bushes instead of the Peepster and came face to face with . . . “Fiona?”
    Eyes wide and scared, she gave a little wave.
    â€œWhat are you doing here!”
    â€œMeeting Peep like he said.”
    â€œDefine
meet
.”
    She crawled between the bushes. “I saw him in the lobby and we talked, and then I went off to clear my head, then got a text from him to meet up here.” She pointed a shaky finger. “He was like this when I showed up, and I hid when I saw your bike coming ’cause I didn’t know it was you, and before you ask I didn’t