Dead and Berried by Karen MacInerney

Author:Karen MacInerney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2007-01-31T13:00:00+00:00

I whirled around in time to see the doorknob jiggle, and a flash of movement through the door’s dark windowpane. I slid a butcher’s knife from the block and sidled over to the light switches. My hand was shaking as it flipped the kitchen light off and the porch light on.

There was no one there.

I crept over to the door to the porch and peered outside. In the watery light, the rain looked like falling silver, but the porch was empty. Then my eyes dropped to the boards outside the door. No one was there now.

But somebody had been.

Muddy footprints, already half washed away by the rain, marred the white paint.

I whirled around toward the swinging door and ran to the front of the house. The door was locked. After checking every window on the first floor, I returned to the kitchen and laid the carving knife on the counter beside me. I quickly chopped the pineapple, the knife slipping in my shaking hands, nicking my finger. Despite the warm, cozy kitchen around me—usually my haven from the world—I felt exposed, vulnerable. If someone had a gun, I realized, I was a sitting duck. I couldn’t see anyone outside. But anyone outside could see me.

I dumped the pineapple into a bowl and turned the burner off under the sausage. A moment later, I thrust the sausage and the chopped pineapple into the refrigerator, then turned off the kitchen light before heading upstairs, knife in hand. I laid the blade on the bedside table and changed into a nightshirt, my ears alert for the slightest sound. Who had been outside the kitchen door, I wondered? Polly’s murderer? It certainly wasn’t a ghost. Ghosts, after all, don’t leave muddy footprints.

And why were they trying to get in?

Adrenaline was still pulsing through me as I arranged the covers around me and picked up one of Michele Scott’s wine lover’s mysteries. I had locked the door to my room. So had Gwen—I checked. And the downstairs was secure. If anyone other than a guest came in, they’d have to break a window to do it, and I’d be sure to hear it. Besides, John was fifty feet and a phone call away.

I tried to lose myself in the California wine country, but tonight it wasn’t working. Finally, I turned off the light, and almost had a cardiac arrest when Biscuit jumped up into the bed beside me. She nestled into my shoulder, and after a long while staring at the darkened ceiling and straining my ears for the sound of breaking glass, I drifted off to sleep.

___

It was still dark when the alarm went off a few hours later. I jabbed the button with a finger and turned on the light. As Biscuit burrowed under the covers, I pulled on a bathrobe and headed downstairs to make coffee.

The rain had stopped, but windows still shone cold and black when I flipped the light on and walked to the sink. I pulled the bathrobe tighter around me, once again feeling exposed.

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