Driven to Ink Read Online Free Page B

Driven to Ink
Book: Driven to Ink Read Online Free
Author: Karen E. Olson
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that.
    “Did you tell Flanigan they’re not at their hotel?” I asked.
    “Who?”
    “The cop who called.”
    “I talked to someone named Willis.”
    Right. “Did you tell him?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Why not?”
    More silence. Uh-oh.
    “You’re not going to, are you?”
    “You’re not my mother, Kavanaugh. I’ll tell them when I’m ready. I figure I’ll do a little hunting around in the next couple hours and see if I can’t locate them first. I know if I tell the cops my mother isn’t where she said she’d be, then they might think she had something to do with what’s in your trunk.”
    As if no one was already thinking that. But I let him have his little fantasy.
    “So don’t tell anyone yet, okay?”
    I bristled. “Why would you think I would?”
    He laughed. “You’re one of the most law-abiding people I know, Kavanaugh.”
    I almost told him I’d touched the guy’s collar, but he’d probably think I was lying, so I bit my tongue.
    “I have to get to my shop,” I said. “I have to take Tim’s Jeep.”
    “You could borrow my mother’s car.”
    I’d driven the antique purple Gremlin a few months ago, and I totally didn’t want to get behind that wheel again.
    “No, thanks. The Jeep’s fine.”
    “I’ll let you know what I find out,” he said before the call ended.
    As I combed my fingers through my short red hair and changed out a couple of the silver earrings that hung in rows outlining my ears, I wondered where Sylvia and Bernie could’ve gotten to.
    I itched to tell Tim, but I’d promised Jeff. I hoped nothing had happened to them. Since Jeff wasn’t worried, I shouldn’t have been, but I couldn’t help it. They were an elderly couple who’d decided to drive an old Buick to the Grand Canyon instead of taking one of the bus tours that ran regularly. Granted, when Sylvia had hinted she wanted to take my car not only to the wedding chapel but also on their honeymoon, I did say no with no reservations.
    Maybe I should’ve lent them the car.
    I shrugged off the thought and went back outside. Nothing I could do about it now.
    Flanigan let me go to work an hour later, after he had me run through each moment of the previous day, before and after Sylvia and Bernie had dropped off the car. I struggled to come up with exact times for everything, although I said if he called my shop later, I could double-check my appointments with Bitsy, who kept track of every minute. It seemed that he didn’t think I had anything to do with Mr. That’s Amore, although he did spend a bit of time questioning me about Sylvia and Bernie.
    When he finally felt satisfied, or at least sated for the moment, I left the cops and the coroner in my driveway, the banana yuccas fanning the crime scene, and headed out through Henderson and onto Route 215 toward the Strip.
    The good thing about leaving late was there was no traffic. When I turned off the highway, I went up Koval Lane, behind all the resorts and casinos, so I could miss all the lights on the Strip. I was convinced that some deranged traffic administrator got a lot of pleasure out of knowing that timing the lights the way they did would mean an extra fifteen minutes on my drive up to the Venetian.
    I parked on the sixth level of the parking garage and took the elevator to the level for the Grand Canal Shoppes. Once the doors opened, I turned to the left and then to the left again and through the sliding doors that led into the mall.
    The developers probably would take issue with me calling it a mall, but that’s what it was. Granted, there wasn’t a Sears or JCPenney like at home in New Jersey, but the high-end stores, like Barneys New York, Shooz, Kenneth Cole, and others, that lined the walkway running along the fake Venice canal and surrounding St. Mark’s Square did constitute a mall, in my opinion. So what if it had ornate gold trim and paintings of cherubs on the ceiling with fake sky and clouds, and musicians and dancers dressed in Renaissance

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