MURDER at the ALTAR (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 3) Read Online Free

drop it into a plastic evidence bag.
                  Suddenly, her heart was in her throat, pounding and racing and causing her a wave of dizziness. Not again, she thought, this can’t be happening again.
                  Soon she was seeing stars and reached out for the glass wall, but it wasn’t there.
                  “Kitty!” Sterling shoved the evidence bag against the nearest police officer and rushed to her just as her legs began to liquefy and her knees buckled.
                  “I’m fine,” she said, as the room came back into focus and she fought the strength back into her legs. “Really.”
                  “I told the officers to keep you in the room across the hall,” he said discreetly, holding her up by her arm.
                  Kitty wondered if he’d instructed his team to do as an act of kindness, or selfishness. She wasn’t that nosey, was she?
                  “I know how you take things personally,” he went on, but it rubbed her the wrong way.
                  “Take things personally?”
                  “No, I mean I don’t want you to take it personally…this death. It has nothing to do with you,” he stuttered, digging the hole deeper.
                  “Why would it have anything to do with me?” she snapped.
                  “You know, along with the other murders...” Sterling hesitated to make things worse by talking, and then went ahead anyway. “Trudy told me you took it hard last time.”
                  “Oh, please,” she snorted, brushing the truth out of the equation, then quickly changed her tune. “I’m going to get a bad reputation. Tell me this wasn’t foul play. Tell me you’re only here as a precaution.”
                  Sterling held his breath and his words, but his eyes said the rest.
                  “Seriously?” she asked in disbelief. “How? Why? What happened?”
                  “That’s what I’m here to find out,” he said. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
                  “I can’t sit with those people,” she pleaded. “And I can’t leave according to the police officers.”
                  “Why don’t you get some air?”
                  “What’ll that do?”
                  “Kitty,” he said, firmly. “You can’t be here.”
                  His eyes leveled into a dark, steely glare devoid of sympathy, and Kitty felt the totality of every line she’d ever crossed with him. What had started as a coy flirtation every time she’d meddled in his investigations would not be appreciated this time around. And because of it, she felt suddenly disconnected from him. He wasn’t looking at her as though she were someone he’d gotten to know and gone to bed with. He was looking at her like a stranger. No, worse, like a suspect.
                  “Ok,” she managed to say, but it was only a breath.
                  “I’ll see you tonight at eight,” he said softly.
                  “Won’t I see you again and again for however many hours we’re trapped here?” she asked, confused by his dismissal.
                  “Kitty. I’ll see you at the restaurant.”
                  Sterling turned and started through the ballroom, returning to the body.
                  One step forward and ten steps back it seemed. There was just no getting inside that heart of his.
                  As she watched him get back to work, Kitty noticed he and the bulk of police officers focused on both the shattered teacup and the silver tray of tea bags. They were depositing each individual tea bag into its own evidence bag, cataloguing as they went. They didn’t bother with the unused teacups or coffee mugs. They didn’t so