Cast Iron Cover-Up (The Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

until we take care of you. Besides, I need to know more about these friends of yours.”
    “You could hardly call them friends. Henry’s the only one I even knew before this weekend,” she said.
    “Then we’ll start with him,” Kathleen said.
    “What about us?” I asked our older sister. “What would you like Pat and me to do in the meantime?”
    “You could always ride back to town with me,” Kathleen suggested.
    “Or we could look around a little since we’re here,” I said. “My place is just through those woods. We can head there when we’re through. It might be worth a shot if we hang around and looked for clues.”
    “Don’t worry about that. I’ll have some of my people do that,” Kathleen said.
    “Sis,” I said in a soft voice, “if he’s out there somewhere, he could be in serious trouble. How about if we promise not to touch anything, and if we do find something of interest at all, including Bones, we’ll let you know ASAP?”
    “Pat, do you agree to that?” she asked our brother.
    “Of course. We won’t disturb the crime scene, if that’s your concern.”
    “If it even is one,” Kathleen said softly as the attendants gently led Peggy away to the ambulance.
    “Are you saying that you don’t believe her?” I asked our older sister.
    “Think about it. All we have is this girl’s word that something happened out here today. She needs to get a thorough examination before I take her back to my office.”
    “Do you think she’s hurt?” I asked, thinking about the blood we’d found on her.
    “Honestly, I think there’s a chance that she’s high,” Kathleen admitted. “I’ve seen it before. If she’s on drugs, they may be doing something to her mind.”
    “I don’t know. She seemed awfully lucid to me,” Pat said.
    “Plus, if it’s all in her mind, where did the blood come from?” I asked.
    “That’s a very good question,” Kathleen replied. “If you find anything , particularly a blood trail, call me. Do you understand?”
    “We do,” Pat and I answered in unison.
    “I just wish I could believe either one of you,” Kathleen said as she shook her head slightly.

    After Kathleen and the ambulance were gone, Pat and I started our search.
    We had to be quick, since Kathleen’s people were probably on their way, so every second had to count.
    A part of me dreaded the idea of stumbling across a body, but it was something that we had to do on the slight chance that Bones was out there alone and in need of some immediate medical attention.

Chapter 6: Pat
    “W hy exactly were they digging all of these random holes?” Annie asked me as she peered down into yet another shallow depression.
    “Peggy already told us that. They were looking for buried treasure,” I reminded her.
    “I know that, but what specifically?”
    “Beats me,” I asked as I looked around the open area of what had once been the main house’s front yard. Annie and I had already scanned the surrounding woods, and neither one of us had found a single thread of evidence that Bones had ever been farther than the clearing we were now standing in. There were no holes in this particular part of the clearing, but I could see where the weeds and grass had been matted down in three large rectangles. “At least she wasn’t lying about the tents,” I said, spotting a few places where pegs had been driven into the earth and hastily pulled out. “The question is why did they take off so suddenly?”
    “Having a dead body to deal with might be a pretty good reason,” Annie said.
    “Sure, but why take it with them?”
    “Pat, they might not have realized that Peggy came back to the site. If they left Bones’s body to do something else, she could have showed up when they were gone.”
    “What do you think could possibly be more pressing business than dealing with a dead body?” I asked her.
    “Finding a place to hide it,” Annie answered grimly.
    “We don’t even know if Bones is really dead or