Read Online A Killer in the Rye by Delia Rosen - Free Book Online Page A

Smoking? Was I secretly despising the transplant I’d become? Was I trying to destroy myself in an unhealthy, angry blast of blaming it on the dead deliveryman? And then the dreadful thought occurred to me.
    I really miss who I used to be.
    Maybe it was the stress talking, but I had to fight tears as I ignored the disapproving faces and waving hands of everyone who caught a cloud of my smoke.

Chapter 6
    Okay, I was officially having an identity crisis.
    There was no denying it. I was the one who stood out down here. The one who didn’t have a Southern accent. The one person who’d been to the Met and Carnegie Hall but not to the Grand Ole Opry. I was allowed to live here, to give orders to Thom, because my father and uncle were on the inside.
    I looked down at the clutter on my office desk, specifically at the crinkled color photo I’d found stuffed in the back of my top desk drawer when I first arrived. It was of my uncle Murray, comfortable in his element, with a guitar in his hands, a smoke dangling from his lips, and another behind his ear, and he was staring right at the camera, at the picture taker. The flashbulb reflected off the sweaty sheen on his forehead and the lenses of his glasses. A couple of girls were glancing sidelong, curious but otherwise disinterested in the wannabe songster sitting at a table in the apparently sleazy nightclub.
    Despite terrible audience reviews and very little interest from the industry, at least Murray had spent his free time doing what he really wanted to. Just being himself before he had to get practical and earn money. And here I was, taking a hard look at myself, and all I could think of was that I really should get a frame for the photo, instead of having it pinned to a corkboard with a pushpin. Was that the extent of my desires?
    And then there was Detective Grant Daniels. He’d given me all the love and attention one could hope for from a full-time detective. He just wasn’t giving me what I really needed, what I really craved, what most divorced women in their thirties wanted: a second chance at an exciting life that was shared, not catch as catch can. I had spent my first marriage worrying about pleasing a man. Now I wanted someone to pay attention to me, to satisfy me emotionally.
    Was that it? Was that my goal in life?
    I didn’t know. Dammit, I didn’t know!
    The only thing that had satisfied me in the past couple of months was figuring out who killed a local slimeball and nearly getting myself offed in the process. Was it the thrill or a secret death wish that had made it so exciting?
    I didn’t know that, either. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
    Saturdays at Murray’s were always more interesting because most interesting people work during the weekdays, and it was usually lively and interesting when they came out of hiding on weekends. They truly appreciated the time off. I took some bites of bagel and sat back in my chair for one last moment of external peace before returning to the need to make a living.
    After fixing my scarf around my fried-egg head, I opened my office door.
    The dining room was moderately busy, and Dani and A.J. were picking up orders from under the heat lamp. I sensed animosity between the two servers.
    â€œHow we doing?” I asked.
    â€œStupidly,” said Dani.
    I wasn’t sure what she meant, exactly, but I went with it. “What do you mean?”
    â€œI was talking to my coworker about kosher,” Dani said, taking pains to pronounce the word correctly. “I was sayin’ how I agreed with y’all because I hated seein’ animals killed for eatin’. She told me I was crazy.”
    â€œKosher animals are bled out,” A.J. said. “Slowly.”
    â€œThat’s sort of a misconception,” I said. “They use a very sharp knife and the killing part happens quickly.”
    Dani looked a little ill. I didn’t feel so great myself; what I had just said made