It Takes Two to Strangle Read Online Free

point. She was Eastern European with a mien that could best be described as sultry. Her dark features were rough and sensual, and she had a raw aura that emanated sexual hunger.
    Damon ran his hand over the small widow’s peak touching down in the center of his forehead. He once looked up the term and had been horrified to see a list of famous widow’s peaks topped by Eddie Munster and Richard Nixon.
    He felt a momentary wave of intensity and realized that the dark haired, dark eyed woman at the table across from him had torn her gaze away from her companion and settled her sights briefly on him. As soon as the feeling had come, it passed as she swept her eyes around the restaurant.
    Moments later, Rebecca joined him. Damon pushed a check for five hundred dollars across the table to cover the credit card thief’s donation. He held a finger to his lips and wouldn’t allow Rebecca to refuse it.
    They ordered nachos to share and shortly after the food arrived, Damon managed to singe his wrist in scalding cheese. He quickly sucked away the burning sensation and Rebecca launched into a rant about Cynthia’s salon. Cynthia continually placed her trash bins behind The Cookery rather than at the back of the salon. When the garbage collectors inevitably dropped heaps of trash while loading it onto their truck, the refuse wound up in front of Rebecca’s back door.
    At a lull, Damon said, “When I was younger I wanted to be a trash collector.” He paused. “I thought they only worked on Thursdays.”
    “Hilarious,” Rebecca responded but she had a smile stretching between her dimples.
    The restaurant’s front door swung open and Lirim Jovanovic appeared, trailed by Victor McElroy. Lirim had replaced the hunting vest with a dark green polo short, but hadn’t changed his jeans.
    Neither man noticed Damon, and Lirim’s eyes fixed on the nearby couple. Lirim approached the table and said callously, “Hello, Clara.”
    The woman remained seated. “Hello father, you remember Jordan.”
    The neatly dressed Jordan stood and extended his hand. Lirim shook it after a slight pause and took a seat at their table. “You remember my accountant Victor, don’t you, dear?” Lirim said directing his words toward Clara, and intoning “dear” as a euphemism.
    “How are you, Victor?” replied Clara with equal coldness and introduced Jordan. Victor declined to shake Jordan’s hand and wedged his square, but muscular, frame into the last remaining seat.
    “To what do I owe the honor of a personal meeting with you and the good doctor here in Arlington?” Lirim asked. This time, he managed to make the word “doctor” sound like an insult.
    “We’re staying at the Sheraton here for a few days and I need my money,” Clara said without preface. “Probate on Mom’s will finished three months ago and you’ve been holding back what’s rightfully mine.”
    “There are some legal complications, Clara.”
    “That’s bull. Mom’s accident was a year and a half ago and I know for a fact that Uncle Toma already received his share.”
    “Your situation is different than Toma’s, and stop shouting,” countered Lirim. He noticed Damon sitting just feet away.
    Damon tried to shift his eyes to Rebecca, but not before Lirim saw him focused on their table. Lirim lifted his hand weakly in Damon’s direction.
    Damon gave him a nod and the conversation at Lirim’s table swung to hushed tones.
    “I wonder what kind of accident she had,” whispered Rebecca after Damon filled her in that Lirim was one of the carnival owners. Damon imagined a giant claw plucking a woman from the fairgrounds and just as she reached the height of the Ferris wheel, it opened its grip and sent the woman plummeting downward.
    After they finished their meal, Damon obliged the manners his mother had instilled in him and stopped at Lirim’s table. The carnival operator treated Rebecca to the same unctuous once-over he had given Liz de la Cruz. Rebecca suppressed a