It Takes Two to Strangle Read Online Free Page A

shudder. Lirim introduced them to Clara and to her boyfriend, Jordan Hall.
    Clara stood to meet Damon and he felt a spasm below his waist. Her full lips mouthed a tranquil “hello.” It took all of his efforts not to let his eyes follow their way down to her breasts, especially after internally chastising Lirim for doing just that to Rebecca. Clara seemed to instinctively read his thoughts and shifted her hips to wickedly draw his eyes to the curves tugging at her Capri pants.
    “You have arresting blue eyes, Mr. Lassard,” she said bluntly and gave his outstretched hand a delicate shake, letting the tips of her fingernails graze his wrist. Noticing the intimate gesture, Jordan stood abruptly and proffered a handshake of his own to cut off the interlude.
    “Damon is helping with the standard red tape here in town,” Lirim told the group as Clara swiveled back into her chair. “My daughter Clara here never really was one for the carnival business. She thinks she can make a better living roping in doctors like Jordan here.”
    Clara frowned.
    “She’s actually one of the best geriatric nurses the hospital has Mr. Jovanovic,” Jordan said.
    Rebecca stepped into the middle of the family argument and asked Jordan, “Do you and Clara work at the same hospital?”
    Jordan turned grateful eyes to Rebecca and nodded. “Yes. We’re both at St. Michael’s outside of Richmond. She works in one of the upstairs wings. I’m down in the Emergency Room.”
    “Are you going to make it to the fair?” Rebecca asked.
    “I’m not sure,” Jordan said. “We’re just in town to see some friends and take care of some family business.”
    They bantered for another minute while the tension cooled. Victor sat stolidly and Lirim glared at his daughter who picked at her food. Damon forced himself to wish them a pleasant evening before he and Rebecca escaped.
    “Be careful of that one,” Rebecca said as they stepped through the patio to the sidewalk.
    “Which one?”
    “I meant Clara. I saw the way she hooked your attention. But I guess Lirim and his silent bodyguard-accountant warrant some caution, too.”
    “I suppose,” Damon replied, “but they’ll all be out of town by Sunday.”
    They made their way toward the Hollydale’s residential district in a comfortable silence, and Damon’s thoughts drifted to the movement of Clara’s hips. Hers was a sexuality very unlike Bethany’s. Clara was physical and raw. Bethany was refined. He peeked sideways at Rebecca and wished he felt the same internal stirring for her, but it just wasn’t there.

    When Damon arrived home, his duplex neighbor was sitting on their shared front porch per his usual evening routine. David Einstaff poured Damon a tumbler of whiskey and ashed his cigarette. “So what do you think about this business with your mother?” David inquired in his low drawling voice.
    A fifty-something father of three, David was recently divorced. As far as Damon could glean in the few months since David moved in, his neighbor went to work six days a week in a suit, didn’t like to talk about his job and enjoyed his evenings outside with whiskey and more than a few cigarettes.
    Damon plunked down in the chair beside David’s. “What business about my mother is that?”
    “Just that she was getting herself dolled up over at Cynthia’s this afternoon,” he said taking a sip from his glass. “Mrs. Chenworth stopped me at the Safeway. Seeing as how you and I are neighbors, she figured that I was just dying to know that Lynne Lassard-Brown might be headed somewhere special on a Tuesday night.”
    Damon’s mother was about the same age as David, if not a year or two younger, and Damon wouldn’t put it past David to have an interest in her. Most men in the fifty and above set did. “I guess I’ll have to ask her about it,” Damon said. “Or maybe I should just find Mrs. Chenworth. I’m sure she’ll know.”
    Later that evening, Damon called his mother and quizzed