Two Scoops of Murder (Felicity Bell Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

slur didn’t register at first, but when it did, Dorothy’s jaw dropped. This was something she only allowed under the rarest of circumstances, for she knew that it made her look most unattractive. She quickly hitched it up, therefore, and stared at the man, aghast. Never in her life, she meant to say, had she been insulted like this. She thought about giving the manager her most vitriolic response, but then decided it was beneath her dignity to do so.
    “You will hear about this,” she said in a low voice.
    “I’m sure I will,” the manager said, entirely too pleased with himself.
    She fixed him with a glacial stare, whirled around and swept from the store.
    “Oh, Miss Valour!” the manager’s honeyed voice rang out. “I believe you forgot something.”
    She glanced over her shoulder, and when she saw that he was clutching her bra, holding it aloft for the entire floor to see, the blush of shame stole over her cheeks, another thing she normally never allowed. Blushing, she had decided when she was fourteen, didn’t become her, so she had vowed never to do it.
    She gritted her teeth, ignored the goggling onlookers, stalked over to the desk, snatched the brassiere from the man’s hand and stalked off again. Never again would she set foot in The Bristol, and if she had any say in it, and she did, she would make sure that Reece pulled some strings and had this horrid manager fired.
    It didn’t do, she felt, to be insulted like this on the eve of her wedding. Managers were put on this earth to personally see to it that her every wish and command was fulfilled, not to thwart her at every turn. And as she walked down Fifth Avenue she took out her phone and texted a brief missive to her fiancé to this effect. As her nails clicked on the polished glass, she paused. What was the little turd’s name again? Oh, yes. Rufkis.
    ‘Fire Frank Rufkis,’ she furiously typed, then added a smiley, a heart, another smiley and enough kisses to make Reece realize he better take her command into consideration right speedily, or else there would be trouble for him as well.

Chapter 7
    F elicity eyed her mother’s new hairdo critically. “It’s fine. Just…different.”
    “It’s blue!” Mom cried. “Blue!”
    “Looks like something from a horror movie,” Bancroft muttered.
    They were sitting in the Bell living room, where Felicity’s mother had just returned from her weekly visit to the hairdresser. This time Rita had decided to go for something unique. The result was both frizzy and rambunctious, as if Mom’s hair was about to leap from her head and start a rock band.
    Mom gave Bancroft a prim glare. “If that’s all you can say you better keep your tongue, young man.”
    Bancroft shrugged and returned to his perusal of Kim Kardashian’s latest selfie. Felicity’s cousin was tall, thin and quite unattractive, and had decided at an early age that the world wasn’t good enough for his talents. He’d wanted to become a celebrity stylist but instead had to settle for working at the family bakery. Now, at the age of twenty-three, he still harbored vague dreams of moving east and allowing Hollywood’s elite to take advantage of his skills.
    In the meantime he was working a second job as stylist for Revolution Cool, a beauty parlor on Hutton Street, and had made quite a name for himself as one of the snarkiest young men in the business, frequently dropping comments that even Donald Trump would have deemed too crass.
    “I think it’s wonderful, Mom,” said Felicity soothingly. “It’s new, it’s bold, it’s fresh, it’s—”
    “Are you talking about Coca-Cola or Aunt Bianca’s hair?” Bancroft asked without looking up from his phone.
    Bianca gave her daughter an exasperated look. “I knew I should have refused. Every time Rita starts experimenting things go horribly, horribly wrong.” She threw her hands in the air. “Now look at me! I’m like Madonna in the eighties!”
    Bancroft snorted. “Try Diana Ross