Read Online Birthdays Can Be Murder by Joyce Cato - Free Book Online Page B

room and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day. The meat should arrive early, but it had to marinate for at least eight hours. And that would only be the beginning of her preparations.
    As she crossed the hall, the family emerged from the dining room, and at the same instant the front doorbell rang. Chase, moving with much more speed than anyone probably suspected him capable of, opened the door just as Jenny was halfway up the stairs and therefore in the best position of all to witness the scene that was about to unfold.
    Had she known what was coming, of course, she’d have galloped up the stairs like a Grand National winner, but alas, she was not blessed with foresight, a disadvantage that very often caused her grave inconvenience indeed.
    ‘Darling!’ From the first happy and ear-piercing cry, Jenny felt her heart sink.
    Chase, mortally offended at not being given a name, and therefore unable to announce the visitor, watched her sweep past him with a comically dismayed look on his face. Not that the human hurricane in designer gear seemed to notice.
    The impression of force, Jenny saw at once, was largely projected, for the woman herself was tiny – standing in high-heeled shoes at not more than five feet tall. Her hair was the colour of rich corn, yellow and probably natural. Under the coat, a very curvaceous figure was hugged tightly by a blue silk dress, and tall stiletto heels made a staccato tapping on the tiles as she all but flung herself into Justin’s arms.
    Justin, perforce, had to catch her, or who knows where she might have landed. ‘Babs?’ he said, and obviously couldn’t have been more surprised if Father Christmas had just rushed in, ho-ho-ho-ing, six months early.
    ‘Pet, I’ve missed you so much. I simply couldn’t stay away another day.’
    Alicia, Jenny noticed, was having a great deal of trouble keeping her face straight. The elder Greers, however, were looking, in contrast, distinctly nervous at this latest development. From her aerial view, Jenny watched as the young woman bussed Justin’s cheek, leaving a fine smear of powder on his face. Her lips, painted a deep, luscious red, brushed his ear and she saw her teeth give him a nifty nip.
    Jenny’s eyebrow rose.
    ‘Babs, what on earth are you doing here? I thought you were coming tomorrow night.’ He sounded anything but pleased and welcoming.
    ‘Oh, petal, don’t be so banal,’ she accused. ‘Oh, yes, before I forget, I have some cases outside,’ she said, noticing the butler for the first time. ‘Could you be a dear and bring them in for me?’
    Chase went white, then red. Jenny wondered if anyone had ever before dared to even think of Chase as ‘a dear’ and doubted it. Doubted it considerably. ‘Certainly, er, madam,’ he said, the hesitation between the two words making it as near to an insult as Chase would ever come, but both the elder Greers noted it at once, of course, and their anxiety visibly deepened.
    It was obviously a bad sign, Jenny realized, when Chase became antsy.
    ‘A suitcase?’ Justin said sharply. ‘I thought I told you I’d booked a room for you at The Bell?’
    The woman laughed. ‘Oh, you and your jokes!’ Her eyes were a rather surprisingly deep pansy brown that looked almost black, and they met his with an expression in them that would have made a rock think twice about claiming to be hard. ‘Justin, are you going to introduce me to the parents or what? After all, they do need to get to know their future daughter-in-law.’
    Alicia, at this, guffawed out loud, then, at her brother’s furious look, clapped a hand firmly across her mouth. Sherri Greer swayed in shock, and Chase, who had just returned, dropped the cases on the floor. He stared at them for a second incomprehensibly then quickly retrieved them, hoping nobody had noticed such an unforgivable error.
    ‘Timbuktu,’ Jenny whispered under her breath. ‘I could just do with a nice trip to Timbuktu about