The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum (A Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum Mystery) Read Online Free

“I’ll be in touch.”
    “Uh, it looked like Christy got hit in the head with a miniature stone obelisk,” I said.
    “I’ll decide what she got hit with,” the detective snapped.
    “I brought it up because Adele might have accidentally picked up the obelisk,” I said.
    Mouth slackening, the detective rubbed her brow. Adele looked at me like I’d returned her favorite Manolo Blahniks covered in mud.
    “She was sort of in shock,” I added.
    “You two stay here.” The detective slapped her notebook shut and strode inside.
    “Thanks a lot,” Adele hissed.
    “They’re going to find your fingerprints on it anyway. Better you tell them now.”
    “But I didn’t tell them. You did.”
    I hunched my shoulders. “Sorry.”
    Adele stared at her designer shoes. “No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have touched it. It was like the thing hypnotized me.” She crossed her arms. “Laurel must be loving this.”
    “Laurel?” A coldness knifed my core.
    “The detective.”
    I stepped backward, shaking my head. It couldn’t be.
    “Laurel Hammer?” Adele said. “From high school? She was a year ahead of us. Ran with the smoker crowd? Had three tattoos by the time she graduated? Shoved you into your gym locker? How could you forget? The fire department had to pry you free.”
    I swallowed. “I must have blotted it from my mind.” But I hadn’t. You didn’t forget being stuck inside your ninth grade gym locker for over an hour, wearing only your ninth grade cotton underwear.
    Laurel Hammer. She’d been shorter and bulkier in high school. But she still had the same hard edges.
    My high school bully emerged from the tea shop with two uniformed officers. “We’ve got more questions.” She motioned toward the squad car. “Get in. We’ll give you a ride to the station.”
    “No need,” Adele said. “My Mercedes is a few blocks from here.”
    Laurel’s expression was granite. “Leave it. Gonzalez?”
    One of the uniforms nodded and came to stand beside us. The other opened the back door of the squad car. Feeling criminal, I slunk inside. Adele, muttering, slid in beside me.
    “Cheer up,” I said. “We’re not cuffed. They only want to talk to us.” But even I knew this wasn’t a good sign.
    At the police station, they put us in separate cinderblock rooms, and I waited. And waited. The floor was green, and somewhere I’d stepped in something sticky. I lifted my boot experimentally, listening to it peel off the floor. Ewww.
    The good citizen in me was programmed to help the police. And I wanted to help. A murder in San Benedetto was shocking. Of course the police had questions. What was Christy doing in Adele’s locked building? Why had we been there so late at night? The sooner I cleared things up, told them what happened, the sooner they could solve the crime.
    I tried to think zenlike thoughts and look innocent for the video camera high up in one corner of the wall. But the longer I sat, the more I thought about Christy and Michael and Adele. Picking up the obelisk had been stupid, and I half-wondered if Adele had done it intentionally.
    Berating myself for my disloyalty, I propped my head in my hands, elbows on the table. It wobbled beneath me. Adele might be pampered, privileged, and pushy, but she was a good person at heart. She didn’t spend time at the head of all those charitable committees because she wanted to network. She cared about her projects. And she’d been a good friend, there for me for everything from my senior prom disaster to my latest career hiccup. Adele wasn’t a killer.
    I’d know if she was a killer.
    Wouldn’t I?
    Laurel Hammer banged open the door to the interview room. “So which one of you two idiots killed her?”
    I sat up. “Um, neither?”
    She sat across from me and braced her elbows on the table. I removed mine, and her end thumped to the ground.
    She scowled. “If you cover for her, that makes you an accessory. It’s not looking good, Kosloski.”
    My gaze