Out of the Blue: A Pengram Mystery Read Online Free Page B

frames.
    “Did she ever complain to you that someone at work was bothering her?” Halloran asked in the living room.
    “There was the guy at Tasty they call Weird Scott, but he bothers everyone,” Lindsay replied. “He’s not dangerous weird, or not from what she told me. Just off in the head. He also works at the deli counter. I don’t know his last name. And she’d have shitty customers now and then, but that’s normal. I get them at my job, too, horny dads trying to flirt while their wives and kids are twenty feet away.”
    “Did she have a computer?” I called.
    “No,” Lindsay answered. “She wanted a laptop but didn’t have the money. She used her phone for everything. She was like this blast from the past when it came to tech, you know, because her grandparents never had a computer or cell phones and wouldn’t let her have those things either. I helped her pick out a cell phone right after she moved in with me and she was so excited to join this century, she said. She’d never been to an amusement park either so we went south to Rollaway for her last birthday. She had the time of her life on the rides. We rode every last one, even the rides for little kids. There was a hot guy working the Snake and we went on that one three times just so he could check our seatbelts again.”
    With a choked sob, Lindsay exclaimed, “Why didn’t I look in last night to see if she was home? Why did I leave the club without thinking about her? What the fuck kind of friend am I? I was . . . I was partying while she was dying .”
    We had Chloe’s phone, but I had a feeling we weren’t going to find anything on it. This murderer might have been a total stranger to her. We had to see the footage from the cameras at Bounce, if there were any.
    Halloran continued his questioning as I searched through the room, finding nothing of interest. No, Chloe hadn’t done drugs. She had tried marijuana twice in high school and it made her feel weird instead of relaxed, so she hadn’t done it again. Nor had she expressed interest in trying anything else. In fact, Lindsay had seen her turn down pills at a concert they went to over the summer. Chloe didn’t care what anyone else was taking; she just didn’t want to be on anything herself. Yes, she drank, but she didn’t usually get smashed. Two or three times a month was about how often she consumed alcohol. Most of the times it had been to excess, Chloe and Lindsay were at home playing drinking games along with a bad movie on the television.
    No, she didn’t have any other friends, as far as Lindsay knew. Chloe hadn’t talked to her about anyone, and only went out socializing when Lindsay pushed her to do so. She was a homebody happy with a book or TV show for company, a mug of green tea steaming beside her, not a party-hard young adult.
    So how had she ended up dead in the silk mill?
    Oooh, a mystery! I heard Mom’s childish, excited squeal as clearly as if she were right beside me in the room.
    Like it was a show. A game. Where the detectives always won and the criminals always lost, and the grief of the victim’s friends and family evanesced at the end of the episode since they weren’t real people anyway.
    If only.
    If only it worked that way. Lindsay was going to have Chloe on her conscience for a long time. Possibly the rest of her life. That was something my puddle-deep mother would never understand, since nothing ever touched her very much.
    It was early in the afternoon, and there were still many hours of work ahead. I gave a mental slap to my lazy thyroid gland and forced myself to keep going.
     
     

 
     
    Chapter Four
     
    You can reimburse me for the condoms.
    It was late. I stared at the text from Tyler on my cell phone, mounds of paperwork covering my desk and an unfinished report on my computer needing my attention. Wanting to ask what about meeting for coffee had inspired Tyler to buy condoms, curious why he felt entitled to my money for a purchase I’d