Read Online Double Booked for Death by Ali Brandon - Free Book Online Page B

back at the office. His expression, or what she could see of it behind the wraparound sunglasses, reminded her of the blank mien cultivated by the Buckingham Palace guards. She noticed, too, that the older girls in line were shooting him appreciative looks in between arguing over Haunted High trivia with their friends.
    Darla had met Reese earlier but there hadn’t been time for any chitchat, since the barricades were being delivered as he’d showed up. By then the crowd had begun to take on a girlishly moblike air. After a quick hello, he’d swiftly gotten to work, unloading the bright blue sawhorses from the truck and setting them up. Jake, a small electronic megaphone in hand, had begun organizing the waiting fans into a fair semblance of a line behind the ever-lengthening barrier.
    “Hey, only about ten more hours of this. Think you can handle it?” Darla called to Reese now, over the sound of the crowd.
    The palace guard cracked a smile. “Yeah, what every cop dreams of, spending a day riding herd on hundreds of teenage girls. How about you?”
    “I’ll tell you that tomorrow, when I know if this day is going to go on the books as a fond memory to savor, or a nightmare to relive again and again.”
    “As far as crowd control goes, this one’s a piece of cake,” he assured her. “I could tell you about some genuine nightmares, but this ain’t one of them. Don’t worry . . . Jake and I have it under control.”
    His accent was a toned-down version of Jake’s, and amusingly at odds with his corn-fed, midwestern looks. His smile revealed a chipped front tooth, possibly a result of the same blow that had done the deed on his nose. Though Darla had always preferred dark-haired, dark-eyed men, she was finding herself more than mildly attracted to this cop. Unfortunately, now was neither the time nor the place to indulge in it.
    A tug at her shirtsleeve dispelled any lingering doubt that today was all about business. She looked down to see a familiar pair of large black-framed glasses set on a heart-shaped face staring up at her in concern. The pigtails were absent this day. Instead, the girl’s wavy blond hair streamed over the shoulders of her scaled-down black cape, the effect only slightly spoiled by her pink backpack. A crooked application of red lipstick made her look less a vamp, however, and more like she’d just chowed down on one of those big red candied apples from the Texas State Fair.
    “Hi, Callie,” Darla said with a smile, refraining from commenting on how cute the girl looked dressed as a mini-Valerie. Callie, she suspected, would not appreciate it. “Are you here for the autographing?”
    The girl extended one thin wrist to display the bloodred band she wore. “I’m number 137. My sister is number 138. My mom made her and her friends take me with them, but they’re pretending they’re not with me. That’s okay, though, because I brought stuff to read.”
    Callie’s serious expression morphed into one of preteen disdain. “Susanna says I’m too young for the Haunted High books, but I read at a college-freshman level. She only reads at grade ten. I think she’s only ever read about five books in her whole life.”
    “So long as your mom says it’s okay for you to be here, you’re fine,” Darla replied, feeling a sudden kinship with this über-solemn girl.
    She hoped that Susanna was responsible enough to keep an eye on her little sister all day long, as Darla could not. Indicating the man beside her, she added, “I have to get back inside the store now, but if you need anything, this is Reese. He and my friend, Ms. Martelli”—she pointed at Jake, who was heading down the walk toward them, her limp less noticeable because of the stacked boots she wore—“they’re in charge of security. If you need help for any reason, you go to them, okay?”
    Reese gave the girl a noncommittal nod, obviously wavering between wanting to look accessible yet needing to keep up his tough-guy