Killer Honeymoon Read Online Free Page B

guess. In the meantime…”
    “We should get back home to the bedroom?” Jake’s
eyes twinkled.
    “I should probably call Rocky and Flora. There’s
no way I can look a gift corpse in the mouth.”
    “So to speak.” Jake grimaced.
    Jane remembered the remnants of the body’s face
and also wished she had come up with a different turn of phrase. Jake’s
accounting of their various properties was outside of the realm of reality, so
she filed it away to be thought about in the far future. The Rainier cabin, on
the other hand, made her happier than she had expected. Thrilled, really. She
could keep going there, could take her future kids there, could even bring
Gemma and Grant there someday if they wanted to come, which they would. And
thinking about a lifetime of happy memories on the mountain helped her forget
about how gross the body in the shed had been.
    Jane and Jake made it back to the Crawford beach
house and were ready to get to work on the murder. “This place is going to need
a better name than the Crawford beach house.” Jane settled into the kitchen and
poured herself another cup of coffee.
    “The house of sand and fog?” Jake stood at the
picture window, staring at the ocean.
    “Ew, no.” Jane tapped her phone screen. “I’m
going to make the call. I am going to do it. This case was almost literally a
wedding present.”
    “Yup.”
    Jane tapped the contact info for Flora Wilson at
the SCoRI office. “A wedding present from God.”
    “Just call, will you?”
    Jane pressed the little green phone icon. It
rang.
    “Senior Corps of Retired Investigators.”
    Jane swallowed. “Flora, this is Jane.”
    “Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?”
The mildly acid voice belonged to Flora’s office manager, Miranda.
    “I am, but we have a problem. Could you put
Flora on?”
    “Why not?” Miranda chuckled.
    Jane wouldn’t let the snide reception get to
her. Miranda wasn’t married, so whatever she was thinking about calling into
work on your honeymoon was probably not fair, anyway.
    “This is Flora.” Flora’s voice was tired,
rushed, and a little put out. So, normal.
    “Hey, this is Jane. We’ve got a little problem
out here in Warrenton. At the house. The, um, the beach house. There was a body
in the shed.”
    “Hang up and call 911. Right now.”
    “We already did. It’s okay. The ME has the body
and stuff. But we thought if you guys came out here, we could maybe pursue some
lines of inquiry and make it count toward supervised hours.”
    “That’s Clatsop County.” Flora paused. “So Judy
has the body.” She paused again, the sound of shuffling papers barely audible.
“We have a new case here. Should be fast, but I don’t know.”
    “I guess, if you can’t…”
    “It’s not that we can’t. Let me talk to Rocky.
We can assign this case to someone and maybe get out there. But without a
client…”
    “The body was found at our house. Couldn’t Jake
be the client?”
    There was a long pause this time. “Yes. I think that
would work.”
    “Great! So when will you be here? We’re staying
here for two weeks, but after that Jake is leaving for a month.” Jane’s heart
was beating as fast as the words spilling out of her mouth.
    “Give me a few hours to take care of business
here and we’ll call you.”
    “Yes, I can do that. Thank you.” Jane ended the
call. “She’s going to do it, Jake! I can’t believe it.”
    “Did you say I was the client?” Jake’s eyebrows
were pulled together. “How much is that going to cost me?”
    “Less than a starter apartment in Paris, I’m
sure.”
    She sidled up next to him and nibbled his ear.
    He put aside his fake reluctance and they found
a way to entertain themselves until Flora called.
    “We’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning.
This was an old body, and you have limited time, so don’t waste today,” Flora
said.
    Jane blushed, not agreeing that the other things
they had to do were a waste of time. “They