Read Online 1 Grim Tidings by Amanda M. Lee - Free Book Online

home when pretend ing to do the opposite isn’t easy.
    Thankfully, Jerry seemed to realize that I knew more than I was letting on and decided to be helpful.
    “Don’t forget you have to help me at the bakery today,” he said. Jerry participates in community theater and he gets off playing a part. His current role was supportive best friend, and he wasn’t above lying to a cop to get him out of our condo.
    “You own a bakery?” Griffin asked. He was still playing the comfortable breakfast angle.
    “Get Baked,” Jerry replied, his pride evident as his chest puffed out.
    “That’s a great place,” Griffin said.
    “You’ve been there?” I asked pointedly.
    Griffin looked momentarily abashed. “Well, no, but I’ve been to a few brunches where cupcakes from Get Baked were served.”
    “Brunches?” Jerry narrowed his eyes. “I thought you were straight.”
    “I am straight.” Griffin looked flummoxed. “You know, straight people have brunch, too.”
    “Not in my world. She doesn’t have brunch.” Jerry pointed at me for emphasis. Unfortunately, he was lying. I remembered a series of Sunday brunches I was forced to attend with Jerry’s posse. I didn’t tell Griffin, though.
    I couldn’t fight the smile that flirted with the corners of my mouth as Jerry sank into his performance. Griffin frowned when he saw my reaction.
    “I’m not gay.”
    “I know.” I held up my hands in mock surrender.
    “It’s good you’re not gay,” Jerry said.
    “Why?”
    “Because if you’re gay you can’t end this one’s dry spell.” Jerry gestured toward me haphazardly.
    My smile flipped into a scowl while Griffin’s frown turned upside down. “Dry spell? ”
    “He’s being dramatic.”
    “Six months,” Jerry shook his head. “Six months isn’t just a dry spell, it’s a drought.”
    “Don’t you have to shower before work?”
    Jerry considered the question for a second and then winked when he got my inference. “Oh, right, you want a few minutes alone with our guest.” He got to his feet and dropped his coffee mug in the sink. “I’ll just leave you two alone.”
    He obviously didn’t get my inference.
    “Did you want some time alone with me?” Griffin asked after Jerry left the room. He seemed amused at the prospect.
    “Not really.”
    Griffin raised his eyebrows, clearly not believing my answer.
    “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Murders to solve and all of that?”
    “I’m still waiting for you to comment on the possibility of a demon murdering Mr. Harper.”
    Great.
    “I think that the pot on the streets these days must be a lot stronger than the pot I smoked when I was in high school.” Wait? A cop can’t arrest you eight years after the fact, can he?
    “That’s all you have to say about it?” Griffin’s eyes were serious.
    “What do you want me to say?”
    “I want you to say, ‘Oh, that’s crazy,’” he replied.
    “Oh, that’s crazy.”
    “Something tells me something else is going on here.”
    “Is that cop intuition?”
    “More like human observation.”
    “You must be a big hit at parties.”
    Griffin regarded me for a second and then slowly rose to his feet. “I should probably go.”
    He probably should. I can’t race out of the apartment and accuse my brother of being a big, fat liar if he is still here grilling me.
    “I’ll be in touch if I need to talk to you again,” he said.
    “Of course.”
    Is it wrong that I’m secretly yearning for another interrogation?
     
    TWO HOURS later I was in Troy watching a Hindu try to make peace with Shiva.
    “Seriously?”
    Redmond refused to meet my accusing glare. “What does it hurt?”
    “Aidan said that you guys don’t do this,” I said. “He says that you just go in, scepter blazing, and collect the soul and get out. He said that trying to talk to the souls is a waste of time and that I need to toughen up.”
    Redmond ignored my sarcasm. “Oh, by the way,” he reached into his pocket and handed me a