Murder in Wonderland Read Online Free Page A

her the satisfaction, that's all. It's all about the book, she told herself. Pay her no mind. It’s all about the book.
                  She muttered the word to herself.
                  The cake! She'd almost forgotten.
                  The spice cake she'd made from scratch was the pièce de résistance. Across the top, spelled out in Zante currants, were the words EAT ME, another reference to Mr. Dodgson's masterpiece. She smiled at her handiwork, plated the cake, marched it into the living room proudly and placed it on the coffee table.
                  "HEll-o," said Del Collins. "I think this cake be dissin' me."
                  Allie was perplexed for a moment, and then it hit her. "Oh stop it! It's from the book." She gave Del a playful tap on the knee.
                  "I'm just sayin'..."

5
     
                  She thought later on that it had started with the whole tablecloth thing, because that seemed like the moment that it started to go downhill. So that meant that it had all started with the dreaded eye in the table. If it weren't for that eye, she would not have left the house when she did. There wouldn't have been any time away from her tea or her scones or anything in her house. If it wasn't for the eye, she could have focused more, could have seen to everything the way she'd been planning it for months. But such was not the case. The eye had dictated that things were destined to fail, and so it had set in motion a series of events designed to will the negative outcome into reality.
                  The human mind does things like this in times of crisis. A trip that results in a sloppy fall on the ice is blamed on the ice, not the person doing the actual falling who could have taken every precaution not to fall. So too does the mind look for something to blame when everything seems to fall away from you at once.
                  It was Jill, or Jenny. One of them wanted honey for their tea. That had to want honey in their tea; the eye had deemed it necessary.
                  The discussion had barely gotten underway. They'd begun analyzing the very concept of nonsense in the tale. It was a fascinating discussion that almost was, were it not for the honey and the will of the eye.
                  Allie excused herself to the kitchen. She opened the wrong cupboard. She had a habit of placing things in the wrong cabinets when she rushed. She'd done this more than once, and had been frustrated with herself. Now frustration beat down on her with a sensation that was too intense to bear. She felt like pounding the cupboard doors with her fists. Slamming a cabinet door shut, she tried to get a grip and compose herself. No honey. That's all. It was not the end of the world.
                  Or maybe it was.
                  It certainly sounded like it.
                  Screaming.
                  From the living room.
                  Tori Cardinal had dropped dead.

6
     
                  Her collapsing body had apparently hit the coffee table on the way down. There were tea stains, cookies, and bits of scone scattered all around her. Ben Sokol was leaning over the body, which was splayed out in an unnatural position. "She's not breathing."
                  He gave the coffee table a shove aside, turned the body over, and proceeded to administer CPR.
                  "Somebody call 91—"
                  "I'm on it," said Del Collins, her phone to her ear.
                  "I don't understand," said Allie. "What happened?"
                  "When you went in the kitchen, we were just talking, and she started breathing funny," said June Brody, her voice tinted with uncharacteristic emotion. "She began texting, ignoring us when we asked what was wrong. She stood up and