Read Online A Tale of Two Biddies by Kylie Logan - Free Book Online Page A

edges, but she accepted the correction with good grace. “Darnay. Charles Darnay. He’s French, and Sydney is English. And the two of them—Charles and Sydney—they look an awful lot alike. Darnay is being tried as a spy and a witness says he can identify him for sure, only when the time comes, he can’t tell Darnay from Carton, who’s also in the courtroom, and that’s how Darnay gets off. And Darnay and Carton are both in love with the same woman, and later, when they’re going to chop off Darnay’s head with the guillotine, Carton changes places with him.” Sighing didn’t seem to fit into Chandra’s book report, but sigh she did. “Sydney sacrifices himself for love.”
    It was as apt and economic a synopsis of
A Tale of Two Cities
as I’d ever heard, and I told Chandra so.
    She blushed. “Well, some of us take our reading assignments seriously.”
    “Yeah, some of us do. Which is why I can’t believe—”
    With the lift of one hand, I cut Kate off. There was no use for the two of them going at each other, and I knew if I didn’t put an end to it, that’s exactly what would happen. The League of Literary Ladies had come a long way since the day we were sentenced to discuss books for the next year, but I had no illusions. If we weren’t careful, if we didn’t remember that our problems were in our past and that we were all friends now, our neighborhood bickering could erupt again at any moment. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Not when for the first time since college, I had real friends I could trust to stand at my side, thick or thin.
    Besides, we had more serious things to worry about than who was reading what. Like who messed with the magic guillotine, and why. Kate must have been thinking that, too. “So what do Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay have to do with Dino and Richie?” she asked.
    I thought I understood what Chandra was getting at so I explained. “Richie went after Dino. Dino says he doesn’t know Richie. That means Richie thought Dino was someone else, and he wouldn’t have thought that if Dino didn’t look like someone else. Like Sydney Carton and Charles—”
    “Darnay.” Chandra was proud of herself for remembering the name. “And don’t you see, it explains everything. That’s why Richie yelled at Dino at your place yesterday, Bea. Mistaken identity.”
    I gave Chandra’s theory another few moments of thought. It was a little out there, but then, so was messing with a magic trick that was designed to be harmless. “So whoever messed with the guillotine might have done it because he thought Dino was someone he’s not. If that person knew the guillotine was only going to be used as a prop tonight, then rigging it like that was designed to send a message. But if that person thought Dino was actually going to do the guillotine trick tonight, if he thought Dino was going to kneel down and put his head in the stocks and Jesse was going to pull that lever . . .” I couldn’t make myself finish the thought.
    I didn’t have to. Kate did it for me. “That could have been Dino’s neck in that guillotine.”
    “And it could have been Dino’s blood splashed all around,” Luella added.
    “And it could have been Dino’s head rolling around the stage like that half of watermelon,” Chandra reminded us, though, really, she didn’t need to. I’m pretty sure the way we all stood there, our arms wrapped around ourselves and our expressions twisted, we could imagine the scene for ourselves.
    I shook away the thought because it was either that or collapse onto the sidewalk and whimper. Thinking like a detective was better than thinking like a horror writer. As the Ladies constantly pointed out, I do not have the stomach for that. “We don’t really think that Richie would do a thing like that, do we?”
    “Richie’s not exactly what anybody would call normal,” Kate said. “He might go after Dino if he hated him enough.”
    “Or if he hated the person he thought