Frosted Shadow - A Toni Diamond Mystery by Nancy Warren

Author:Nancy Warren
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Toni Diamond Mysteries, Book 1
Publisher: Ambleside Publishing
Published: 2014-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective. —John Buchan

Toni discovered two things while she was standing there. One: reading about a person discovering a dead body or watching it on television is very different from actually doing it. Two: she was not as brave as she thought.

She knew she had to find out whether Nicole was still alive which meant she had to touch the woman. Toni thought the chances that there was life in that body were slim, given the wound and the amount of blood that soaked the cream silk, but obviously, it was important to be sure. Imagine if she could have saved Nicole’s life and didn’t because she was too scared.

For a second, Toni thought she heard Nicole breathing, then realized she was wheezing loud enough for both of them. Reaching forward, Toni felt under Nicole’s ear and down her neck trying to locate the same pulse point she monitored on herself while exercising. She discovered it’s not easy to find another person’s pulse, especially when your own is banging away inside your head like the entire cast of Stomp on speed.

She felt around a bit, pushing her middle and ring fingers into flesh that was cool and rubbery but she didn’t feel anything. She kept her eyes turned away from that awful knife hilt on the left side of her chest. Around where her heart must be. Toni reached for her cell phone and backed away.

She bumped into something. She would have screamed but terror clogged her throat. She spun around only to see that the door had shut behind her. In her panic, Toni dropped her cell phone, which sounded like an explosion as the metal device hit the floor tile then slid under the stall and into the next one. She bolted out of Nicole’s stall and dove to the floor to retrieve her phone.

She called 911. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to punch the numbers in three times before she got it right.

She knew she should stay until the police arrived, so she paced the bathroom floor a few times telling herself to calm down. She didn’t want to look but as she paced Nicole’s legs kept coming into her range of vision under the stall, like the Wicked Witch of the East’s after Dorothy’s house falls on her and all you can see is her lower legs and her shoes.

Then Toni did the oddest thing which ever afterward she would associate with shock. She went back to the stall and pushed Nicole’s knees and ankles together and neatened up her skirt. It was crazy, interfering with a body like that, but she couldn’t stop herself. If she had an enemy in the world it was Nicole, but she thought of how much her appearance mattered to her and how mortified she’d be to have strangers seeing her sprawled out like that.

Toni couldn’t bring her back to life, but at least she could ensure she was sitting modestly when the police arrived.

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