Kill 'Em with Cayenne Read Online Free Page B

it out and held it to my nose. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee tantalized my taste buds. I couldn’t help myself. I took a sip, then another. Hot and strong, it warmed my innards. Surely McBride wouldn’t notice if the mug wasn’t quite as full as he’d left it.
    As my insides began to thaw, my brain clicked into gear. C rime scene? Who’d want to kill Becca? I distinctly recalled McBride saying “crime scene.” Surely he was mistaken. I closed my eyes and envisioned Becca lying on her side, her right hand outstretched as if to break a fall. The hair at the back of her head had appeared sticky, matted. Certainly there must be a reasonable explanation for her death. Maybe she’d tripped over a root or slipped on a hickory nut. Maybe she’d suffered a heart attack. Or had a seizure. Whatever the case, she’d fallen and struck her head. A simple accident. Not foul play.
    Then doubt pricked a teensy hole in my theory, letting the air out of my bubble of self-deception. If Becca had fallen—and landed in her present position—she’d have struck her forehead, not the back of her skull.
    I mulled this over as I drank coffee. Yellow tape now decorated shrubs and bushes like a child’s clumsy attempt at putting garland on a Christmas tree. I watched McBride, notebook in hand, prowl the scene in ever-widening circles. The paramedics arrived, armed and ready to administer CPR to a corpse. The fire department followed minutes later in their hook and ladder in a show of solidarity for their crime-fighting buddies. The men climbed out of their respective vehicles and congregated in a tight knot outside the roped-off area. Last, but by no means least, John Strickland, local mortician and county coroner, pulled up in a van, then toted a medical case over to where Becca lay under the azaleas.
    â€œHey, girlfriend.” Reba Mae sidled up to where I sat. “What’s this about you findin’ a body? Wasn’t one enough?”
    Sheesh! I hissed out a breath between clenched teeth. One would think I made a habit of seeing dead people. And all because several months ago I’d happened upon a local chef who’d been murdered in his own kitchen.
    â€œI swear, Reba Mae, if one more person asks me that, I’m going to scream bloody murder.” I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Please,” I groaned. “Poor choice of words. Forget I just said that.”
    â€œNo problem, honeybun,” she said. “News is spreadin’ like a brush fire. Good thing you’re sittin’ up front or else folks would really have somethin’ to talk about.”
    At hearing this, I glanced around. Folks were fighting a losing battle not to stare my way. I’m not clairvoyant, but I could read their minds. They were asking themselves and one another what Piper Prescott was doing in a police car. Was I a suspect in an assault and battery? Or a murder? Was I about to be arrested? And how was it a person could find more than one dead body in an entire lifetime? Tired of being a sitting duck, I popped out of the police car and leaned against the rear bumper.
    Reba Mae leaned next to me. “So fill me in.”
    â€œBlame it on shin splints,” I grumbled, taking another sip of McBride’s coffee.
    â€œWhat did I tell you when you bought those fancy runnin’ shoes?” She shot a glance at my psychedelic-green footwear. “I tried to warn you that exercise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Look where it’s gotcha.”
    â€œI overdid too much of a good thing,” I confessed. “If it hadn’t been for those darn shin splints, I’d be standing behind the crime scene tape instead of being stared at by my friends and neighbors.”
    â€œSo, tell me”—Reba Mae lowered her voice—“did you recognize who the body belongs to? Promise, I won’t tell a soul.”
    I debated the pros and cons of