Murder Most Fancy by Kellie McCourt

Author:Kellie McCourt
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HQ Fiction
Published: 2021-12-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

WHITEBOARDS AND SNAPPLE

I was hoping that running away from Dylan mid-date at La Cotta was a signal sufficiently insulting and blunt to disabuse him of any notion of my having any interest in him personally or professionally. This was an optimistic view. Dylan was not a quitter. Moreover, I had a sinking feeling his ego was much bigger than his pride. Landing a Hasluck-Royce would be an enormous ego boost. Fixing a broken Hasluck-Royce would be a next-level personal and professional coup.

However, I refused to admit to Patricia that I may have failed to eradicate Dylan. I had food services to maintain. To safeguard my breakfast trays, I took extra precautions, instructing Patricia to hire a security firm to place a guard at the front gate. The guard was to refuse entry to everyone without an appointment except Searing, check all flower deliveries for hidden phones and answer directly to Patricia.

While delivering a real breakfast the next morning Patricia had questions. ‘What about online shopping deliveries?’ she probed. ‘Can I tell him to let those in? Who checks those?’

After seeing Searing at the beach and receiving a stern warning from Burns to stay away, I had doubled down in the undergarment stakes, almost cleaning Guia La Bruna out of C-cups and flattering French knickers. I didn’t want some burly gorilla named Bruce rifling through my new lingerie.

‘Online package deliveries are fine. Esmerelda will check them.’

Wait, there was something wrong with that sentence.

‘Except the Guia La Bruna packages.’

‘Who’s Guy La Brew-nah?’ Esmerelda asked, waltzing in, no doubt having smelt the sweet scent of both tea and coffee.

‘He makes Egyptian skincare, same recipe as the pharaohs used,’ I said with the same amount of truth as the ‘nothing’ I had received to my question about the duck ruckus the day before.

I slid out of bed, robed, slippered and made my way to the table. I really needed to start formalising these breakfast arrangements and move the whole circus out of my bedroom and into the pool house dining room.

Esmerelda’s phone pinged and she slipped it out of her back pocket. She managed to key the phone and pour herself a cup of English breakfast tea at the same time. I feared for the safety of the china cup in that juggling act. It was worth more than the phone.

‘Awesome,’ she said, setting herself at the table and attempting to add my French toast to her juggling mix. ‘Rachael White says she’s tracked that batch of dental implants. It came into Australia via a wholesaler.’

‘Great!’ I said, waiting for Patricia to pour my tea. ‘Can she contact the wholesaler and see which surgeons they sold them to?’

She examined the screen. ‘The wholesaler went broke a few years ago.’ She read on, ‘Oh, and he’s also dead.’

‘Great,’ I said dourly, pouring my own tea.

‘She’s lookin’ for “a list of practices that purchased from the wholesaler”,’ she read, still eating.

‘Is there a list?’ I asked hopefully.

‘She doesn’t know if there’s a list.’

Breakfast yoyo. I

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