Read Online Cut to the Bone by Joan Boswell - Free Book Online Page B

book.”
    â€œGood plan. If the killer got the wrong girl, Ginny Wuttenee may be in danger, and the sooner we pin down her life story, the more likely we are to know whether or not she needs protection.”
    â€œGinny Wuttenee is staying with Ms. Nesrallah. We’ll stop and tell her to meet us downstairs in the party room in an hour when we’ve finished in Sabrina’s apartment,” Rhona said.
    â€œNot Ms. Grant’s office?”
    â€œNo. We’ve interfered enough in their lives. The party room will be fine.”
    â€œWe should have it to ourselves. No one will be partying right now,” Ian said.
    Before entering Sabrina’s apartment, they pulled on gloves and protective covers for their shoes.
    â€œIf we turn up anything significant, we won’t have contaminated the site,” Rhona said.
    The apartment reeked of paint.
    â€œI thought the new paints didn’t smell,” Ian said.
    â€œLatex is better. They’ve used oil in here,” Rhona said, flicking on the hall light to reveal deep amber walls, the colour intensified by the amber shade on the overhead light. The effect was strange but attractive. From the hall they moved to the living room.
    â€œCharcoal. Isn’t it smashing,” Ian said. “The white woodwork, the ebony furniture — absolutely smashing.”
    Rhona wasn’t quite so taken with it, but it was a stunning room.
    â€œI never considered charcoal. My pine furniture would stand out against it. I see a project coming on.”
    Rhona reflected that if Ian had made that statement with any of his male colleagues, he would have been mocked, if not to his face then behind his back. Maybe the fact that he revealed so little about himself was a careful cover-up because he realized how he’d be perceived. Interesting. Maybe he wasn’t the metrosexual she’d pegged him for. Maybe … but what did that have to do with anything.
    â€œNothing personal here. It could be a hotel,” Rhona said.
    They continued to the master bedroom, also painted charcoal with a black iron bedframe and white linens. A well-stocked bar cart and the same mirrored ceiling they’d seen in Ginny’s bedroom as well as a white floktari rug on the black-stained floor made a dramatic but impersonal impression.
    Ian slid open the drawer of one bedside table.
    â€œAnything?” Rhona asked.
    â€œA selection of condoms,” he said and bent to open the cupboard underneath. “Sex toys to please almost anyone.”
    â€œSee what’s in the one on the other side,” Rhona instructed.
    Ian walked around the bed and checked. “Same kind of stuff, but there’s more sadomasochistic things — a whip, handcuffs.” He probed further. “Leather masks and other things,” he said and shut the door.
    â€œTools of the trade, I suppose. Could be relevant — too soon to tell. We need to know more about her, who she is, and where she came from. Let’s try the other bedroom. She must stash personal belongings somewhere. This room reveals nothing about her personality other than her dramatic taste in furnishings and colour and her willingness to do whatever her clients asked.”
    She opened the door of the second bedroom and stopped to absorb the total contrast to the rest of the apartment. Soft rose walls, a white wooden single bed with a beautiful quilt. Four more beautiful antique quilts hung on the walls. On the white desk an open, ready-to-go, state-of-the-art sewing machine and a closed Apple laptop took up the space. Two tall white bookcases filled with rectangular white baskets and a series of black binders, a chest of drawers with a wall-mounted flat-screen TV, and an armchair slip-covered in cream cotton with a footstool upholstered in rose-patterned chintz completed the furnishings. A multi-coloured rag rug on the floor added to the room’s welcoming coziness.
    â€œThe real Sabrina Trepanier