Domestic Affairs (Tiara Investigations Mystery) Read Online Free

controlled.  
    Tara shook her head. “We’re not going to be investigating a murder, so neither will they.   Everybody’s happy.” Her voice had gained momentum until she was positively chirping. She was getting panicky.
      That made me anxious about what was on that napkin she’d taken from the table. “The napkin?” I held out my hand.  
    She took it out of her handbag and slid it across the table. “Whose lip prints are the-s-e?” I let that last word trail off because Tara’s face gave me my answer. The small amount of lipstick left on her matched the lip smack on the napkin.  
    “That lip-plumping stinging was getting on my nerves and I couldn’t think straight. The napkin was right there, so I picked it up and used it.”
    “Now I don’t feel so bad about touching his head.”   Victoria leaned over and rubbed Tara’s shoulder.  
    That sonofabitch orange dinosaur was right there on the corner of the napkin wearing a look that I wanted to beat off of him.   He was laughing at us for making such a serious mistake. The thought cracked me up and before I knew it I was laughing so hard it was a minute or two before I could tell Vic and Tara what was so funny.   “Tara, you’re an attorney and you took evidence from the scene of a crime. Find some way to get this napkin to Detective Kent. Tell him we didn’t know it was a crime scene when you took it.”
    “Okay,” she said.
    Victoria touched the corner of the napkin with the handle of her fork and turned it around. Then she read the scrawled words, “Buford Dam. Intermittent denial of service.   First step.”
    “What the hell?” the three of us asked in unison.  
    “Buford Dam?” I live in Hartfield Hills, a little town in metro Atlanta. I’m a couple of miles from Lake Lanier. The next town over is Buford where you’ll find the dam that created the lake out of the Chattahoochee and Chestatee Rivers. About sixty percent of Georgia gets its drinking water from the Chattahoochee system.   Hydropower from Buford Dam’s powerhouse generators provides electricity to 25,000 homes, pollution free.
    The two gents Tara had noticed earlier, walked by and they were both trying to make eye contact with her.   “What’s the matter? That little kiss at the restaurant wasn’t enough?” I asked.
    “Nothing from that guy would be enough.”
    “Ouch,” Victoria said. Then she turned to me, “So, your turn.   What does skiff mean?”  
    “ SCIF is an acronym for sensitive compartmented information facility. It’s a special room for the highest level intelligence work, completely secure against eavesdropping and protected from the outside world.   I think the restaurant manager was mistaken. Why would Buford, Georgia, have a top secret communications center?”
    “Well, what did Thomas Chestnut mean when he wrote this?” Victoria looked at me and then Tara, waiting for an answer.
    “Do we know he wrote it?” I dabbed the corner of my mouth with a less important napkin.
    “There was an ink pen on the table by his hand.”   Tara finished off her deviled egg.
    No one said anything for a second. Anyone watching us would swear we’d planned the next part, but it just happened.   We all got up and walked out. Not another word was spoken until we got to our cars. Sure, we’d chew on all that later, but for now we’d get back to our full case load and full personal lives.  
    Tara touched my sleeve. “Leigh, don’t give this a single thought.”    
    Victoria was about to second this when a text message came in on her cell phone. “It’s your mother.   She wants to remind us they are available to help gather ‘clues or evidence.’   I’ll type back ‘k’.”
    “K, indeed.”  

CHAPTER 4

    Continuation of statement by Leigh Reed.   At nine o’clock on Saturday my husband and I were still spooning. I’d gotten up much earlier to take Abby out and feed her, then I came back to bed.   She was taking her morning puppy-nap