Traci Tyne Hilton - Mitzi Neuhaus 04 - Frozen Assets Read Online Free

going to represent me. His assistant said he was Arnold’s lawyer after the divorce and so he…” Her voice trailed off. She put one hand over her eyes and took a deep breath.
    “So he won’t help you with Arnold’s murder?”
    Karina didn’t speak.
    The phone was on the table between them. Mitzy picked it up and tapped the back of it with her acrylic nails, the clicking in rhythm with the music playing in the background.
    “Don’t say anything else to the police until you get a lawyer, okay?” Mitzy’s heart was beating against her ribcage. She’d have to help. Someone on the police force, Officer McConnell, or maybe one of the other guys she’d worked with before, could give her advice. She’d call her brother Brett to find Karina the best lawyer in town. She stopped her clicking and looked at Karina again.
    Gray roots were beginning to show in Karina’s once-perfect golden hair. How was Karina doing financially? Could she afford the best lawyer?
    “I have a kind of delicate question… I know you needed to sell the house so you could move on with your life. But do you have enough money right now? I mean, for a lawyer?”
    Karina lifted her head and smoothed back her hair with her thin, pale hand. “I should be all right now,” she said. “I’ll have the insurance money to see me through.”
    “Life insurance?”
    “Yes. I had a two-million-dollar policy on Arnold.”
    Mitzy sucked a little breath through her teeth. She was sure this tiny woman hadn’t shoved her stocky ex-husband off of the Juliet balcony… but two million dollars was a pretty good motive. She could feel a frown forming on her face, so she pulled it back to a look of concern as quickly as she could.
    Karina noted the look on Mitzy’s face and looked down at her cup. “But Arnold had one on me as well, for just as much. We bought them before the divorce. No one would expect anything less of us, surely. It’s perfectly normal.” She looked up at Mitzy again, her eyes wide and full of fear.
    Mitzy had no answer for that. It may well have been perfectly normal in Karina’s set, but she didn’t want to be the one to try and convince a jury of that. She decided to turn the conversation. “Please call me and tell me where you are staying tonight. I want to know that you will be okay.”
    A smile wavered on Karina’s face. “Thank you.”
    Mitzy walked back to the truck with Karina. The snow had stopped falling, and the wan sun had begun to melt it. “I’ll help anyway I can.” The oily-machine-man smell of Alonzo’s truck was a comfort—something solid in a cold, confusing world.
    Alonzo drove them back up the hill to the crime scene and dropped Karina off.
    “Is she going to be okay?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. I don’t see how she can get through this alone.”
    Alonzo draped his arm over Mitzy’s shoulder. “She doesn’t have to. You won’t let her go through this alone.”
    Mitzy took a deep breath. “I won’t. But I don’t know how much help I can be. That family is very messed up.”
    They drove the rest of the way home in silence.
    When they pulled onto their street, Mitzy surveyed the homes. All single story ranch style. What kind of renovation could you do on a street like that?
    Alonzo opened the car door for her and offered his arm. Compared to infidelity and murder, what was a house, really? It wasn’t the same thing as family, and she had the family thing nailed.
    By five that evening, dark had already fallen, and Mitzy was tucked into her Snuggie with her laptop open to RealtorblogUSA. Her phone rang, jarring her out of her reading.
    “This is Mitzy.” She stretched one arm over her head. Maybe she’d get a new house to list.
    “It’s me.” Karina’s voice shook with fear, but Mitzy recognized her.
    “How are you holding up?”
    “They’ve arrested me. What am I going to do?”
     

 
     
     

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    “This is horrible!” Mitzy sat up with a bolt. “But why did you call me?