Frosted Shadow, a Toni Diamond Mystery: Toni Diamond Mysteries Read Online Free Page A

registration was still backed up. Lady Bianca associates had been registering for two days now and still the procession of women waiting to be checked in snaked like the world’s slowest conga line.
    No hotel they’d ever found could smoothly register several thousand woman all arriving at once.
    The reception desk, even fully staffed, couldn’t hope to get through this many women in less than a couple of hours. But then the consultants were used to that. There they stood in long, curling lines. They’d come from every state in the union as well as Mexico and Canada. Some had flown and others had driven hours, even days to get here. And yet every one of them looked professionally turned out. Their hair was neat, their clothes businesslike. They wore hose and closed toed shoes, various recognition pins and jewelry. And, of course, their makeup was flawless.
    Even though they were standing with their luggage and the lineups were barely inching forward, there was more excitement and happiness in this crowd than she’d seen – well, since last year’s conference.
    And the noise! The gals gossiped, giggled, traded war stories, introduced each other and inched toward the eight harried desk clerks.
    Of course, no cohort of thousands is without its bad apples and as she hit the main level and stepped off the escalator, she saw one particularly moldy Golden Delicious coming toward her. The lobby was so crowded with women waiting to check in that only a narrow corridor was left to pass from one end to the other so it was impossible for her to avoid the only person in Lady Bianca she truly despised.
    Nicole Freedman never met a corner she couldn’t cut. If there was something she wanted, she’d lie, cheat and push out a few crocodile tears if necessary. Unfortunately, she and Toni were chief rivals for this year’s top sales division prize. Not for the first time.
    Toni donned a smile as fake as the diamonds on her suit buttons and said, “Well, hello, Nicole. You’re looking wonderful.” In fact, she’d gone a shade too dark in the hair dye on her sleek bob. With her pale complexion and the raven’s wing hair she reminded Toni of a much older version of Tiffany and her friends. Mom Goth – yeah, that was a trend that was going to be big.
    As usual, Nicole was surrounded by a couple of groupies. Melody Feckler, her confidante, right hand and dog’s body, had taken to dying her hair the same shade as her mentor, Toni noted. It wasn’t much of a surprise since Melody tended to copy everything Nicole did. They wore similar suits, shoes and bags, but it was clear that Nicole spent a lot more money on herself. Melody was like one of those magazine layouts where they show the designer runway model and then recreate the look with cheap imitations from TJ Maxx and Penney’s. Melody had a sweet face and candid blue eyes, but with the black hair she looked like Snow White’s older, overweight cousin.
    Stacy Krump was a newer recruit. An intense, quiet woman who looked like the type of girl in high school who cried if she didn’t get an A. From the number of recognition pins on her chest, she was still getting straight A’s.
    Nicole registered almost as much phony delight at seeing Toni as she’d been accorded.
    “Why, honey, you look better every time I see you. And you are obviously using the new highlighter shades to minimize your nose. Really, in this light, it hardly looks prominent at all.”
    Every woman has her vulnerable spot. Her thighs are too big, her breasts too small, her teeth too crooked. Toni’s thing was her nose. She had a big nose. Not Cyrano de Bergerac get-a-nose-job-and-get-on-with-your-life big, but her nose was the dominant feature on Toni’s face.
    She’d inherited it from her father and on a six-foot-two rodeo rider it looked fine. On Toni it looked like there’d been a bit of a glitch on the genetic assembly line. Her grandmother, the Pentecostal preacher’s wife, who’d never been known for