Share No Secrets Read Online Free Page B

times and she suddenly knew with sick certainty who lay pale and stone-still in that lavish bed.
    Julianna Brent. The Julianna whom Adrienne had known since childhood. The beautiful Julianna who used to smile and flirt and throw back her head and sing with the pure joy of life. Later, Adrienne recalled the one inane thought that tolled through her mind during the awful moment when she felt as if she were free-falling through space …
    Julianna Brent would never again sing along with her favorite song, “Sweet Dreams.”
2
    Brandon started toward Julianna, edging toward a woman he knew well, who always petted him and lovingly rubbed his ears. But Skye grabbed the dog’s collar and held him back. “No, Brandon,” she said tonelessly. “We mustn’t disturb her.” She looked up at her mother with huge eyes. “It’s Julianna, isn’t it?”
    Adrienne nodded slowly. “I think …” She swallowed. “I’m afraid it is.”
    “Oh God, Mom. How? Why?” Skye took a deep breath. “You probably should check to see if she’s really dead.”
    “Honey, she must be,” Adrienne said softly. To her own ears her voice sounded as if it were coming from far away. “She’s not moving and she’s so
pale …”
    “But you can get real pale from blood loss and shock. I learned that in my first-aid class. She might just be hurt.” Skye made a hesitant move toward the bed. “If you don’t want to touch her, I’ll check and see if her heart’s still beating.”
    “No,” Adrienne said quickly. “I’ll do it. You stay back and hold on to Brandon.”
    Adrienne moved in a state of blurry shock to the right side of the bed, the toe of her shoe banging against a heavy glass bottle. A wine bottle. Shards of cream-colored ceramic littered the floor. She realized it was the base of a lamp when she saw a battered shade and an electric cord on the floor.
    Adrienne looked down at Julianna’s white face, marred only by a small cut and a faint bruise on her forehead. She started to touch Julianna’s neck to feel for a pulse. When she gently moved aside the hair, though, she saw a large, ragged hole just beneath her left ear. Blood saturated the back of Julianna’s auburn hair and soaked the pillow, already turning to a dull red. Adrienne shuddered and paused. She fought the hot water rolling into her mouth and concentrated.
    The hundreds of murder mysteries she’d read in her life, along with having dated the local county sheriff for over a year, had taught her she shouldn’t disturb the crime scene in any way, shouldn’t touch Julianna more than she had already. But she needed to know for certain if Julianna was dead, whether or not to tell the people manning the 911 emergency number to rush an ambulance to a dying woman and to instruct her about what to do for her friend until they arrived.
    She pulled back the bedspread, light cotton blanket, and satín sheet Julianna lay naked to the waist beneath the bedding. Adrienne lifted Julianna’s left arm. It was cooler than her own but felt soft, indicating the muscles beneath were still pliable. Julianna was not yet in rigor mortis. But when Adrienne pressed her fingers to the woman’s slender wrist, she felt nothing. She shifted her fingers again and again, searching for, praying for, a beat, even a flutter of a pulse. Nothing.
    “Mom?”
    “She’s dead,” Adrienne said flatly. “I’m almost certain she’s dead.”
    ‘Oh no,” the girl quavered. “How?”
    “There’s a hole in her neck. She’s been stabbed with something. There’s lots of blood. You can’t see it from where you’re standing.”
    Adrienne took a step away from the bed, still looking down at her friend. Then the shock that had so far kept her calm surged from her body. Her hands turned icy as the floor seemed to shift beneath her. Her legs felt weak.
    “Oh God—” Adrienne choked, then began to shake violently. In an instant, Skye stood next to her, enfolding her in her sweater-clad arms, holding