Dial Om for Murder Read Online Free Page B

wondered the same thing.
    Jake asked, “When did you try calling?”
    She did some mental calculations. “Probably between one forty-five and one fifty. I left right after that.” He was watching her closely, confirming her own suspicions. She said, “Of course Nicole could really have been speaking on the telephone part of that time. Either way I’d have got a busy signal. There’s no way of knowing for sure when she put the phone down.”
    Even assuming she had put it down voluntarily.
    “It’s possible,” Jake said noncommittally. But as his eyes met A.J.’s eyes, she knew with a sick feeling in the pit of stomach that Nicole had probably been dead by the time she left the studio.

Four

    “Okay,” Jake said, as his cell phone began to ring. “I’ll follow up with you on a couple of points, but you can go.”
    A.J. rose and hesitated. “I’m guessing dinner is off?”
    He grimaced, and for a moment the hard, professional mask slipped. “Yeah. Sorry. There’s no way I’ll get free tonight. This is high-profile stuff.” His voice dropped. “I’ll call you, okay?”
    A.J. found that tentative “okay?” revealing. She had the impression, though Jake had never come right out and said so, that he was used to women not showing much understanding of his work schedule.
    “Okay,” she said, and offered a cautious smile.
    He smiled—fleetingly—in return, and pulled out his cell phone. She turned away.
    “Oh, and A.J.?”
    She glanced back, and Jake admitted, “ That was sharp thinking—using your cell phone to take pictures of the position of the murder weapon.”
    And she actually blushed! As though he had paid her the rarest of compliments. Granted, compliments from Jake were pretty rare. Unlike Andy, A.J.’s ex, Jake was not much given to flowery sentiments. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; it just took some getting used to. Andy had been a wonderful communicator—in all but one thing—Jake, not so much.
    “It must have been all those Trixie Belden books I read as a kid,” she offered. She had been prepared for much harsher words since it had been her suggestion to Bryn that they freeze the mostly melted lumps of ice—all that remained of the ice sculpture someone had used to smash Nicole over the head. She had yet to hear what the forensics people thought of her method of preserving the murder weapon.
    Jake raised his brows, clearly having no idea who Trixie Belden was, and answered his cell.
    As A.J. left the dining room where the police had set up base, she heard his crisp, “ The boyfriend? Good. Let him through. I want to talk to Mr. Young.”
     
     
    An attractive, bearded blond man of about forty was walking across the lawn toward the house as A.J. started down the wide porch steps. She recognized J.W. Young, Nicole’s live-in boyfriend. Young was a director—mostly documentaries and programs for public television—and he collected Civil War memorabilia. That was the extent of what A.J. knew about him, although they had met a couple of times. She watched as he made his way through the police and troopers, while from down the drive and behind the yellow police line, media photographers snapped pictures.
    Gray-faced and grim, Young passed A.J. without seeing her.
    “Oh, J.W.!” cried Bryn from inside the house.
    A.J. glanced back in time to see Young framed on the porch with his arms around Nicole’s sobbing PA. Not that A.J. blamed them. She could relate to the need for a hug about then, but down the road the photographers were clicking away frantically, zoom lenses focused unsparingly on their target.
    As a former freelance marketing consultant it was second nature to A.J. to consider image, and she had a feeling the likeness of Young and Bryn locked in an embrace might not look quite so platonic on the cover of The National Enquirer or other supermarket tabloids. She could imagine the headlines now: TV Mob Wife Gets the Business in Hollywood Love Triangle. Right next to