Death on Demand 17 - Dead Days of Summer by Carolyn Hart

Author:Carolyn Hart [Summer, Dead Days of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

6

A nnie paced on the porch overlooking the lagoon, looking for flaws in her plan to plunge into Vanessa Taylor’s world.

Her gaze swept the water. She paused, moved to the porch railing and watched an alligator swim past. The triangular black snout slid through the dark water. The ridges of his back looked like indentations in the water. His tail swept back and forth, propelling him forward. If she hadn’t seen him, she would never have known of his presence, he moved so silently. That’s what she needed to do, glide easily through the next few days, unheeded, unheralded, unknown, but dangerous and deadly for her prey.

If Annie could submerge herself in Vanessa’s life, she might discover the reason for her murder. Vanessa hadn’t died as a result of passion. She’d died as the result of a carefully devised plan that could only have been engineered by someone she knew well. Vanessa wouldn’t have cooperated in deceiving Max for a casual acquaintance. Vanessa must have agreed to the scheme against Max either to please someone or because she had no choice. Had she been in some desperate situation? Or had she been a willing conspirator? Whatever her motive, something in Vanessa’s life had caused her death, and there was no question that for the last year and a half Vanessa’s life had centered around the Whitman house.

There might be a way to gain access to the house. Annie’s plan might be crazy. It certainly was daring. Could she do it? Could she assume a new identity, meld into the background as the alligator merged with the lagoon? She would have to be brave and skillful and clever.

She turned, went back into the cabin. She’d lost count of how many times she’d read the dossier on Vanessa. To succeed in her venture, she must absorb every fact within these pages as instinctively as she recalled her own past. She must forget the way purple-black clouds bank high in a May sky in Amarillo, forget her days at Southern Methodist University and the elegant campus with its Georgian architecture, forget her sojourn in New York and coffeehouses in Soho. She must think of the flat plains of Illinois and the majestic skyline of Chicago and Sears Tower and choppy waves on Lake Michigan. Annie settled once again on the sofa and picked up the dossier:

Vanessa Taylor: Twenty-three years old. Born in Peoria, Illinois, youngest daughter of Charlotte and Henry Taylor. One sister, Genevieve, nine years older. Father an insurance adjuster, mother an elementary school teacher. Family moved to Wilmette when Vanessa was six. Attended public schools, graduating from New Trier High School. Cheerleader, choir, lead in West Side Story, waited tables for spending money, two years in junior college, came to the Carolina coast three summers ago, waited tables at Parotti’s Bar and Grill, hired as Lillian Dodd’s secretary a year and a half ago.

Brownie leader Arlene Hubbard: “Sassy. There was always a current of antagonism between Vanessa and women. Maybe that puts it too strongly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.