Wake Up, Darlin' Corey by M. K. Wren

Author:M. K. Wren [Wren, M. K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Published: 2015-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The twenty-five-mile drive down the coast to Westport was particularly pleasant on this warm, crystal-clear day, and Jonas proved an entertaining companion, regaling Conan with stories of his world travels. He had indeed met a number of “interesting” people, many of whom lived by codes not written in the laws of any land.

In Westport, Conan stopped at a gas station to ask the way to Leo Moskin’s house. The attendant directed him to a gravel road striking west from the highway. After winding through Westport’s outskirts, then a stretch of uninhabited pine woods, it ended at length at Moskin’s house on a promontory overlooking the beach. Conan wondered if Leo hadn’t also resorted to mail-order architecture. Like its owner, the house was large and imposing—a two-story, bastardized French Provincial. Apparently, Leo was having a party, judging from the number of cars parked along the circular drive.

Conan stopped the XK-E well away from the house, then said to Jonas, “Give me your shoes.”

Jonas stared at him. “My what?”

“Your shoes. It’s not that I don’t trust you, Jonas, but if you do decide to hike out of here, stocking feet on this gravel should slow you down enough for me to catch up with you before you reach a phone.”

At first Jonas seemed ready to argue, a flash of cold resentment in his eyes. Then he shrugged, even laughing as he removed his shoes. “Do I get them back shined?”

“Worry first about getting them back at all.” Conan got out and locked the shoes in the trunk of his car. Jonas offered a smile and a wave as he departed.

On his way to the house, Conan saw the special license plates of a state senator on a Mercedes sedan. A political gathering, apparently. This was verified when the door was opened for him by an aggressively attractive woman in her late thirties, offering a white smile and the handshake that seemed reflexive in political circles. “Hi, I’m Lindsey Cross, the senator’s campaign coordinator. Come in!”

Conan let her take his arm to guide him down a hallway toward a large living room in which a decorator had attempted to maintain the French Provincial motif. There was not, Conan noted, a single original painting on the walls. At least fifty people crowded the room, most forced to stand, drinks and canapés in hand, all with the unmistakable sleekness of wealth about them, and all talking, of necessity, loudly.

Lindsey Cross was still smiling. She shouted, “I’ll tell the senator you’re here, Mr.…?”

Conan recognized the senator in a knot of supporters in the center of the room, but he was looking for the party’s host. Leo Moskin, even in this crowd, was not hard to find.

“Sorry, Ms. Cross, but I didn’t come to see the senator. I’d appreciate it, however, if you’d tell Mr. Moskin that Conan Flagg is here, and I’ll either talk to him in private or here—in public.”

Moskin opted for the former choice, and within five minutes, Conan was sitting across a desk from him in a room Moskin referred to as the library.

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.