Strung Out to Die Read Online Free Page B

and mattress. The closet was all I needed for what little clothes I was fitting into at the time.
    I stopped shy of the door after I heard a rustling sound behind me. I bolted upright, and stiffened, trying not to move, blink, or even breathe.
    Was the real killer already here to claim my life?
    Willow sniffed the paver stones. My nerves were getting the best of me. Someone might be out there to get me, but they’d be stupid to try in the daylight?
    “Psst,” someone said from the shaking bushes.
    I jumped. Putting my hands up in the only karate chop position I knew, I scream, “Watch out, I’m armed and dangerous!”
    “With what? That pig?” The whisper that was loud but familiar, gave way to laughter. The bush shook again. “Holly, look over here.”
    I looked. The pink sneakers sticking out from the bushes were a dead give-away.
    “Bernadine, what are you doing in there?” I parted the twigs, but Willow had already begun her ritual of licking Bernadine.
    “Ouch!” Bernadine untangled her long crimson hair that was caught up in the bush and pushed Willow away. “I didn’t want Jim to see me since it was his brother-in-law that was killed in the shop. Enough, Willow.”
    Willow liked Bernadine. Well, she liked the cut up apples and grapes that Bernadine kept in a Ziploc baggie in her pocket.
    “Food Watchers,” she would claim, holding the snack up every time I suggested she keep them at home. As long as I’ve known Bernadine, she’d been on Food Watchers. Only she really didn’t watch her food or her weight. She’d always been the same five-foot-one and a little on the plump side.
    The keys jingled and jangled as I tried to pry the door open. With a swift kick to the bottom corner and a little nudge, the door opened. Willow flew in, anticipating a spot on the futon right next to Bernadine and her Ziploc baggie.
    “I really need to get that fixed,” I said, referring to the door as I threw the keys in the basket on the counter top.
    Bernadine walked in behind me, nearly knocking me out of the way. The keys fell to the ground. She hung them up on the hook and straightened the remaining items in the basket. I’d gotten used to it. She was a neat freak. “There is a rightful place for everything,” she said.
    Yes, there was, and a Dead Doug’s rightful place was not on the floor of my bead shop.
    “Did you call Ginger?”
    Bernadine grabbed a carrot stick out of her Ziploc, breaking the silence with a big crunch. “No.” She chomped, looking at me as if I had two heads. “Do you honestly think she feels like coming to an emergency meeting? Especially since it has to do with her dead brother lying on the floor of your shop.”
    “Yeah, you’re right.” Although I hadn’t called Ginger, and knew that she wasn’t terribly fond of Doug and his sneaky ways, I was sure she didn’t want to see him dead. She was my best friend and couldn’t think that I actually killed him. Could she?
    Bernadine chased her carrot stick with a few pea pods. I cringed at the thought of eating a pea pod and the reality of calling Ginger.
    The door flew open and Willow nearly broke her legs running to the back of the cottage out of shear fright.
    “What’s the emergency?” Diva Flora bolted in the door with her designer bag hanging off the crook of one arm, and a stack of glass-beaded bracelets jingling on the other. Her cell phone was pressed up to her ear, as usual. “No, not you. I’ll call you back. And don’t think you are getting my Cher albums!” She flipped her phone shut and threw it in her bag.
    Out of all the Divas, Flora never missed a bead class or an opportunity to make a beaded bracelet.
    This was a first. I glanced at the space between her shoulder and ear. I looked for a charging station in that space because Flora was rarely seen without her phone planted there.
    “Who died?” She glanced at her outstretched hand inspecting her nails.
    “Doug Sloan,” I muttered. She obviously hadn’t heard