Read Online Death hits the fan by Jaqueline Girdner - Free Book Online Page B

always saw in the storeroom of Fictional Pleasures. Books. In carts, in stacks, in boxes. And atop the highest stack of boxes, a large, precariously balanced two-wheeled handcart with a wicked-looking metal scoop-end. I found the door to the little office Ivan and Mar-cia shared. I jiggled the doorknob. Locked. I longed for burglary skills, but had to settle for a trip to the restroom and an empty bladder.
    The literary customer was gone when I returned, and Marcia was talking, her fragile features lit up with pure malice.

    "... Zoe and Shayla weren't all the good friends they pretended to be," she was finishing up. "I'm not as stooo-pid as some of the rest of the folks around here."
    Was Zoe the one she suspected?
    "And Dean and Scott and Shayla were in some kind of weird threesome—"
    "Now, Marcia," Ivan objected, butting in at exactly the wrong time. Why did he have to be confrontational now? No wonder he never made it as an attorney. No sense of timing. "I never quite understood their relationship, but Shayla, Dean, and Scott were all genuinely fond of one another. You could see it in the way they treated each other. Almost like a family."
    "Huh!" Marcia snorted, turning on her heel. "Some people never see what's in front of their faces."
    "So what's in front of your face?" Wayne asked gently.
    "Wouldn't you like to know." was her only answer, and then Marcia disappeared down another aisle. Just as another customer came in, a young man this time.
    Ivan motioned us to stay where we were as he got up to wait on the man.
    I looked at PMP, willing her to ask, "Where's Marcia?" but the bird remained silent. Well, it was certainly no crime, as Ivan would say.
    After Ivan had loaded the young man up with an unexpected armful of Mary Higgins Clark, he sat back down with us again.
    "Do you really think Marcia has an idea who the murderer is?" I whispered to Ivan. I didn't like Ivan's manager much, but still, if she kept talking the way she was, her health was going to be in serious danger.
    "Probably not," Ivan answered slowly. He closed his eyes for a minute. "You see, Marcia likes to think of herself as unique. Special." He could have been speaking about one of

    his kids. Maybe that's how he saw her, I realized. "And with all this, this ... you know, she's getting a lot of attention."
    As long as she didn't get the wrong kind of attention, I thought.
    But then Ivan was talking again.
    "I think we might be able to reach some consensus about dealing with this situation if we were all to get together tomorrow," he suggested.
    I groaned inwardly. Sharing the experience of murder was not an exercise I was fond of.
    But Ivan pointed out that the next day was Saturday. If we were going to gather a group, it probably was the best time. So, reluctantly, Wayne and I agreed, and then escaped into the weak February sunlight, but not before Ivan had slipped me a typed list with the address and phone number of each and every member in the group. But it was Shayla I couldn't get out of my mind as I pulled the Toyota back onto the street. She was the one person we really hadn't talked about. What was her relationship with her husband, Scott? And with Dean? And Zoe? And who was she, besides the famous writer, S.X. Greenfree?
    "I wonder what Shayla was really—" I began, a few blocks later.
    "Kate," Wayne announced quietly, "I think we're being followed."
    At first I thought he was joking, but a glance at his rocklike face convinced me he wasn't.
    I started to swivel my head for a look.
    "No, look in the rearview mirror," he ordered.
    I did. Wayne was, after all, a former bodyguard. This was his area of expertise. And when I looked into my rearview mirror, I saw a battered, old, red VW bus behind us.
    Just for fun, I took a turn off the main road. The bus took the turn too.
    I drove back to the main road, keeping an even speed with

    difficulty. I could still see the red hulk behind us. Then I saw the local health food store where Ivan had