Murder Plays House Read Online Free

shortage of the third, and straight couples with children definitely have none of the second.
    “Movie time?” Kat said, hopefully.
    “No. Let’s go see the house.”
    “But it’s not even on the market. And it’s bound to be hideous.”
    “Come
on
, Kat! Gay owners! Let’s go!”
    I wasn’t disappointed. We pulled up in front of a large, stucco, Spanish-style house with wrought-iron miniature balconies at every front window, tumbling purple bougainvillea, and a small but impeccably maintained front garden. The house was only about ten or so blocks from our apartment in Hancock Park, in an even nicer neighborhood called Larchmont.
    Even Kat looked strapped for something negative to say. Finally, she grumbled, “I’m sure it’s out of your price range.”
    I jumped out of the car and raced up the short front walk. The house was a little close to the street, but the block seemed quiet, at least in the middle of the day. I was already imagining how the neat square of grass would look with Ruby’s bike overturned in the middle and Isaac’s plastic slide lodged in the flowerbeds.
    The front door was of carved oak. In the middle of the broad, time-darkened planks was a knocker in the shape of a gargoyle’s head. I grabbed the lolling tongue and rapped once. Kat came up behind me.
    “There’s a lock box,” she said. She reached into her purse, pulled out a keypad, and snapped it onto the box attached to the door handle. Then she punched a few numbers into the keypad, and a little metal door at the bottom of the box slid open. In the box was a security key that looked like it belonged in the ignition of the Space Shuttle rather than in the front door of my dream house. The house I planned to live in until I was an old lady. The house I intended for mychildren to call ‘home’ for the rest of their lives. My house. Mine.
    “Open it, already,” I said.
    Kat rolled her eyes at me. “Playing hard to get, are we?”
    It was real estate love at first sight. The front door opened into a vaulted entryway with broad circular stairs leading up to the second floor. A heavy Arts and Crafts style chandelier hung from a long chain. It looked like the pictures of the Green & Green mansions I’d seen in books about early Los Angeles architecture.
    The living room took up the entire right side of the house. At its center was an enormous fireplace tiled in pale green with a relief of William Morris roses. The walls were painted a honey yellow and glowed from the lights of the ornate wall sconces with hand-blown glass shades that were set at regular intervals around the room. There was a long, rectangular Chinese carpet in rich reds and golds.
    “I wonder if they’ll leave me the carpet?” I said.
    Kat shook her head. “Don’t get so excited.”
    “What?” I said. “This is my house. It’s perfect. I’m buying it.”
    “I’m sure there’s, like, a twenty-thousand-dollar pest report. And a brick foundation. Plus, Larchmont is known for car theft because it’s so close to Beverly Boulevard. It’s a car jacker’s fantasy—the lights are all perfectly linked. Anyway, you can’t afford it. Let’s go get some lunch.”
    “You’re really good at this, you know?”
    She just followed me across the hall to the dining room. There was another fireplace in this room, smaller but just as beautiful as the one in the living room. The walls were papered in what had to be vintage floral wallpaper, tangled ivy, and vines dotted with muted roses. I immediately began fantasizing about all the dinner parties we’d give in thisroom. The fact that we’d never actually given a dinner party, and that my culinary skills are limited to pouring skim milk over cold cereal, interfered not at all with this flight of the imagination.
    “Oh my God,” Kat said, from behind the swinging doors she’d passed through. I followed her into the most beautiful kitchen I’d ever seen. The centerpiece was a restaurant stove as big as my station