Lethally Blond by Kate White

Author:Kate White
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

An editor I used to work with once cut the word thunderstruck from a lead I wrote, saying it was not only hyperbolic but antiquated. Yet I don’t know what word could have better described how I felt at that moment with Locket. You stupid, silly, Botoxed, blubber-lipped ninny! I wanted to scream. She possessed information of crucial importance to the police, and she was just sitting on it to protect her bony ass.

But I didn’t scream. I didn’t want to do anything to freak her out and thus derail the revelation that was in the process of unfolding.

“Driven up?” I said. “He used those exact words?”

“Yes. He said someone had just driven up.”

“He didn’t say who it was?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t butt into Tom’s business.”

“And when you called him, where was he?”

“I don’t know. He just said he was working—painting.”

“Did he say anything else? Anything at all?”

She paused, foraging through her memory. “He made a strange comment that I thought might be a quote—like from a play or a poem. He said he had to—let me think—‘arm himself against some unhappy words.’”

“Sounds Shakespearean,” I said, puzzled. Chris had tossed out a line from Merchant of Venice when we’d first met, so it would be worth asking him if he recognized it. Alan Carr, however, might be an even better resource.

“Had you ever heard him use that phrase before?”

“No, never.”

“Locket,” I said as calmly as I could, “Tom may not have offered up a name to you, but this is still a critical piece of information for the police to know. It’s evidence that Tom knew the person who killed him—that it wasn’t a stranger.”

“But the person who stopped by didn’t necessarily kill him,” she said defensively, almost petulantly. “I heard that the police aren’t sure when he died. It could have happened the next day for all they know.”

“Aren’t we dealing with an awfully big coincidence, then? Tom’s holed up for the weekend in a town where he barely knows anyone anymore, and as far as I can tell, you’re one of the few people he’s informed that he’s there. All of a sudden someone drives up, and he tells you that he’s about to come face-to-face with someone’s unhappiness. That has to be just before he was murdered—it’s essential that you go to the police with this information.”

“I can’t do that,” she exclaimed in a loud whisper, a hint of her Southern roots suddenly creeping into her voice. “There’s no way in the world I can let Alex find out I was up there.”

“This is a murder investigation, Locket.”

The sun was beginning to sink in the sky somewhere behind the buildings that rimmed the park; Locket slipped her sunglasses off her face and dropped them on the table. Her eyes betrayed both worry and anger.

“I bet the next thing you’re going to tell me,” she said, “is that if I don’t do it, you will.”

“No, I’m not going to say that. I don’t have to.

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.