Dare to Die Read Online Free

“I’m through.” She lifted the mug—Ingrid had selected Murder as a Fine Art by Carol Carnac—and drank automatically. She was oblivious to a puffy mustache of whipped cream. She looked at the mug, morose as a nineteen-forties’ gumshoe nursing a double shot of bourbon. “OP. R.I.P.Two months and no plot. It won’t come. Every time I have an idea, do you know what happens?” Her tone was mournful.
    Annie and Ingrid bent nearer. “What?” Annie breathed.
    Emma’s square face sagged. “Nothing.”
    Ingrid looked puzzled. “Nothing?”
    â€œNothing.” Emma’s voice was as doom laden as the creak of a dungeon door in Poe. “The idea lies there like a dead fish. I never understood about inert elements until now.” She looked at them with desperate eyes. “I should have everything I need: my sleuth, a victim, suspects who knew the victim, a title. That’s all I’ve ever needed.” Her voice quivered. “This time, I can’t start.”
    Ingrid patted Emma’s arm. “There, there. You can do it, Emma. You’ve always done it.”
    â€œNot this time.” The words dropped with the finality of a guillotine. Absently she licked away the remnants of whipping cream.
    â€œSudoku?” Ingrid offered.
    Emma didn’t bother to answer.
    â€œTo get your brain started.” Ingrid was eager.
    Emma clutched her head. “Brain dead.”
    â€œI have an idea.” Annie was emphatic.
    Emma sighed. “I have ideas. D.O.A.”
    Annie felt impatient. Emma’s ingenious mind had devised plots that turned on the color of a bird’s feather or the muted sound of a faraway bell tolling. Surely she could pull up her socks….
    A tear rolled down Emma’s cheek.
    Annie slapped the countertop. “The solution is obvious.”
    Emma looked toward Annie, her gaze beseeching.
    Annie was no authority on true crime, but there were classic cases. “You know Dorothy L. Sayers’s brilliant analysis of the William Herbert Wallace affair?”
    Hope warred with despair in Emma’s blue eyes.
    Annie beamed. “We’ll find a crime for you, Emma. There’s the Hall-Mills murders, Lizzie Borden, Sir Harry Oakes, the Mullendore shooting, none of them solved. You pick a crime and once you’ve solved it, starting a new book will be easy as pie.”
    Emma drooped again on the counter. “Pie in the sky. I’m finish—”
    The front door opened.
    â€œIngrid?” Duane Webb’s call was hurried and strained.
    Ingrid’s eyes flared in alarm. She moved swiftly to the center aisle. “What’s wrong?”
    Annie too recognized trouble when she heard it. She squeezed Emma’s arm and hurried after Ingrid.
    Duane, his rounded face drawn and worried, rushed to Ingrid. His bow tie was askew. Despite the fine mist outside, he was in his shirtsleeves. He held open his arms and Ingrid came into her husband’s damp embrace. He spoke quickly as he always did, but his tone was grave. “Sissy’s in the hospital. They think it’s a heart attack.”
    Annie had met Ingrid’s older sister from Tallahassee on a recent holiday on the island.
    â€œHer neighbor got an ambulance and called us. I don’t know what the prognosis is.” Duane sounded angry as well as worried. “Nobody at the hospital will give out information. That damn privacy law again. For God’s sake, nothing works right in this country anymore. One damn roadblock after another because of some damn bureaucratic idiot. I told the hospital they actually can give out information. It’s their prerogative. I might as well have talked to a stone monolith. Everybody at a hospital is scared they’re going to be sued. I told the neighbor you’d come. I’ve gotthe car packed. You can drop me off on your way to the ferry. I’ll call around, find somebody who’ll