Read Online Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) by T'Gracie Reese, Joe Reese - Free Book Online Page A

yacht.”
    “And I really didn’t know I was invited.”
    “Yes, ma’am. You are.”
    “Well, then––”
    Nina looked back at the young man who had initially brought this news, and who was, she now realized, a chauffeur.
    Whose chauffeur?
    Probably the chauffeur of the man whose yacht it was.
    And so, every day has its little surprises.
    She walked around her desk, assembled her rain gear, smiled at the man standing in the doorway, and said:
    “Let’s go to the yacht.”
    And that (her going to a yacht) became the fourth thing to happen on Friday afternoon.

    “And when I say women I don't mean you.”                         –– William Faulkner , Soldiers’ Pay

    The limousine was the color of the rain, which was the color of the mud running in dark rivulets across the school parking lot, which was the color of the sky, which was the color of the ocean.
    All of these elements ran together, so that all she really remembered was being tugged or pushed gently from one place to another—the school road, the beach drive, the wharf, the motor launch, the boat ramp—until, someone’s sensitive hands peeling her rain gear off her, she was ushered below decks into a stateroom the size and splendor of the Robinson Mansion.
    She looked around her.
    It did remind her of the Robinson Mansion!
    And if that opulent palace as rebuilt by old mob money and Eve Ivory’s taste had resembled the sunken Titanic inverted and put right, this yacht’s interior—had she ever been in a yacht before? Maybe, but not this kind of yacht—reversed the process, taking a mansion, and making it a seagoing thing.
    All glass and brass, all shining mahogany hand rails and thick colorless carpeting, hutches smiling with dishware and cutlery, paintings of ships and enlarged group pictures with various United States presidents grinning and shaking hands.
    A waiter, his shirt starched and white, skin starched and white, approached her and smiled:
    “Welcome to The Sea Beagle , ma’am.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Can I get you something to drink?”
    “Cup of coffee?”
    “Of course. Would you care for a pastry?”
    “Just the coffee will be fine.”
    She looked around her at the milling crowd. There was a familiar face here or there, but for the most part, these were people she did not know well, because they were the truly wealthy set of Bay St. Lucy.
    Among them were people in BIG OIL.
    The owner of The Sea Beagle , she remembered having heard, was a highly placed executive in Mississippi Oil and Petroleum, the corporation that ran one of the huge drilling platforms forty miles or more offshore.
    These were people who played golf in foursomes. They wore suits to work and were proud of their ties.
    She filtered through the crowd, and several people, a few men, a few women, felt sorry for her and introduced themselves.
    “Tom Harkness. I’m in digital sales.”
    “Hi, I’m Jill. My husband and I do financial analysis.”
    “I’m Morgan Carpenter. I’m a systems engineer.”
    Her mind went back to Sonia Ramirez, who was struggling to learn how to conjugate the verb “the.”
    “Good luck, Sonia,” she whispered to herself.
    And then there were lights flashing in the front of the room—
    ––or ‘fore,’ she probably should have said—
    ––and there, scurrying around like mice attempting to flee the ship, were two reporters she recognized from The Bay St. Lucy Gazette .
    They were not alone.
    More reporters now.
    And TV cameras.
    Which produced, conjured up as though from celestial education dust—
    April van Osdale.
    There she was.
    After at least fifteen years.
    April van Osdale. Who must now have been in her late thirties, but who seemed ageless.
    April van Osdale was a cake. With a long, tangled, glowing, blonde wig.
    She looked like something that had been baked and decorated.
    She also wore not make-up, but frosting.
    Everything about her was artificial—including the massive, curled, flowing,