Spicy Lasagna Murder: Book 13 in The Darling Deli Series Read Online Free

else. They’ll have to check again when… well, when it’s safe.”
    Moira glanced at the smoldering building and felt sick. Even as she watched, another small fire flared up, and something else inside the building crashed. Anyone who went inside now would risk the entire thing collapsing on them.
    She felt only marginally better when David, his face streaked with soot from helping to put out some of the smaller fires that had started, walked around the edge of the ambulance. When he saw her he wordlessly pulled her into a hug, only letting go when she cried out at the pain that shot through her arm.
    “I was so worried,” he told her in a low voice. “When I couldn’t find you—and then someone said they saw a lady run into the barn—” He shook his head, jaw clenched tightly. Moira winced. She hadn’t meant to scare him. She knew that if their positions had been reversed, he would have done the same thing himself, but she also knew that that wouldn’t make him feel any better. He was already concerned that he was a bad influence on her; he certainly didn’t need her to point out that he wouldn’t have acted any differently.
    “I’m sorry,” she managed. Her voice was deep and raw; even breathing hurt.
    “I’m just glad you’re all right,” he said firmly. “You were lucky that the firemen got here when they did.”
    Moira closed her eyes, trying to remember exactly what had happened. She must have passed out in the barn. The next thing she remembered was lying on a stretcher next to the ambulance with an oxygen mask strapped to her face and the concerned paramedic leaning over her.
    “I need to find the fireman that got me out,” she said. “I want to thank him. He saved my life.”
    “I’m sure you’ll be able to contact him after we get you to a hospital,” David said.
    They both looked down at her arm, which was black and blue and probably broken. Her shoulder hurt where the falling beam had knocked it, and she could tell by the sticky feeling of her shirt that she must be bleeding.
    “The worst is my throat,” she admitted to him. “It feels like it’s on fire.”
    “I’m most worried about your smoke inhalation as well,” he said. “That can be pretty serious.”
    The paramedic nodded.
    “You should get to the hospital. Do you want us to take you…” He gestured at the ambulance that she was sitting in. “Or do you want to be driven by someone else?”
    “David can drive me,” she said, preferring not to have to pay for an ambulance ride on top of everything else. “If you have time, that is.”
    The private investigator snorted.
    “Even if I hadn’t already planned to spend the day with you, I would make time,” he said. “Wait here, I’ll pull the car up. I doubt that after everything that happened they’ll care if I drive on the grass.”
    A few minutes later Moira was buckled tightly into the passenger seat with her bottle of water.
    “I’m sorry for making your car smell like smoke,” she croaked.
    David turned to look at her with an exasperated grin. “Moira, that’s the last thing on my mind. You’re more important than any car.”
    He put the car into gear and pulled away from where the ambulance was parked by the barn. The ride over the lawn was bumpy, which did nothing to help the headache that was beginning, but thankfully once they reached the well-tended dirt driveway, it smoothed out.
    “Thanks for driving me,” she managed to say. Her throat hurt too much for her to want to say anything else, so she rode silently the rest of the way to the hospital.
    Things happened quickly once she and David stumbled into the emergency room. Moira was rushed away by a nurse, while David was left to sit in the waiting room. First, she had to endure x-rays for her arm, then tolerated the cold stethoscope as first the nurses, then the doctor listened to her lungs from every conceivable angle. She was practically sobbing from pain as the doctor prodded her injured