Read Online Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too by Nancy Martin - Free Book Online Page A

friends?”
    â€œNot friends. Associates.”
    Or coconspirators, I thought.
    Michael studied me a little longer, and I feared he was seeing everything I’d tried to repair with makeup. His own beaten-up face—damaged during his misspent youth—concealed many secrets, too.
    He said, “Somebody’s dead, right?”
    â€œY-yes.” It shook me to know I was so transparent to him. “Emma and I were—it’s a long story. The man who owns half this place—he was murdered earlier today.”
    â€œMurdered? Who did it?”
    â€œI don’t know. I’m a little afraid for my friend, though. Delilah might have been the last person to see him alive.”
    â€œDelilah? The black woman?”
    I shot him a look. “Her race has nothing to do with anything.”
    An unamused smile crossed Michael’s mouth. “You think the cops are going to be that politically correct?”
    â€œDon’t be—look, she’s just the last person to talk with the dead man, that’s all.”
    â€œSo you’re worried about her.”
    â€œI’m not worried—” I stopped, unwilling to concede his point. I forced myself to say calmly, “Delilah’s not in any trouble. She’s going to have to spend a lot of time answering questions, though, and she’s a very busy person. It will be inconvenient for her.”
    â€œWhatever you say,” he said. “Have you talked with the cops?”
    â€œEmma and I were questioned for a couple of hours.”
    â€œThat’s enough to upset anyone.”
    â€œYou would know,” I said tartly. “Have you been arrested yet this week?”
    He shrugged again. “There are a few more days left.”
    â€œWhen you wear a suit, it’s usually because you’re talking to lawyers.”
    â€œNot tonight.” He slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers, a gesture I knew he used to disarm people.
    Not handsome, Michael nevertheless had a certain manner that Libby once said “makes the drums in a woman’s jungle pound pretty hard.” When I first met him, I felt struck by libidinal lightning. We got emotionally naked together very quickly, too. The result had been the most satisfying and troubling relationship of my whole life.
    He said, “Besides hanging out with the cops, what have you been up to lately?”
    â€œThings have been quiet.”
    â€œStill dating Clark Kent?”
    â€œHe’s not—” I considered counting to ten, but said, “Richard and I have spent some time together, yes.”
    â€œI saw him here earlier. He wanted to interview me, in fact.”
    â€œTo learn your opinion on global warming?”
    Michael smiled at last, a smile that reached the very bluest depths of his eyes and changed everything. “I’ve missed you, Nora.”
    We heard someone laugh at the far end of the hallway, then start toward us with ponderous footfalls. A stranger coming to break us up before we’d said anything that mattered. Without thinking—because heaven knows I didn’t expend a single synapse to consider my action—I stepped across the six feet of hallway that separated us and put both hands on Michael’s chest.
    He said my name again as I pushed him backward into the antique phone booth. He bumped his head, and I closed the door, locking us both inside a space barely big enough for one. Tilting my face up to his in the dark, I said, “I’ve missed you, too.”
    Okay, maybe it was the exploding hormones. Day and night, I’d been fighting some crazy impulses, and now here was the man who knew exactly how to light my fire, only it was already blazing and what I really needed was an entire engine company to cool me off before a whole city block went up in flames.
    But I kissed him anyway. He kissed me, too, hands in my hair, something like a growl in his throat. I pushed my tongue in his mouth