Read Online Inconvenient Murder: An Inept Witches Mystery by Auburn Seal, Amanda A. Allen - Free Book Online Page B

ignored the whine in Emily’s voice, considered opening a bottle of that pretty pink wine she’d purchased recently, but she told herself to behave. If she was going to bear Sheriff Hotpant’s babies, she’d have to give up the wine and the coffee. So she pulled out her stash of chocolates and set it next to the pile of tacos as she said, “I probably shouldn’t have told him that you were innocent because you didn’t ask me to help you kill dickhead.”
    Emily snorted and then coughed, choking on her bite. She gagged and then gagged again, fighting to not vomit up her two bites.
    “You’re a real lady,” Ingrid said around another mouthful of shredded pork and tortilla. She was ravenous since she’d forgotten to eat most of yesterday and forgotten to buy easy food when she’d bought the herbs and funny-shaped pastas.
    “So, you think I’m going to jail?”
    “Well, I fluttered my lashes at my sheriff,” Ingrid said, setting down her food to be serious for a moment. “And I asked him to keep looking. So probably not. Even though he has no idea what to do with me, he’s definitely interested in me. I can always tell. If dickhead hadn’t died so inconveniently in our shop, the sheriff would be trying his pickup lines on me.”
    “And that helps how?” Emily sighed, picking apart her tacos.
    Ingrid nudged her with a toe and said, “I don’t know. But I do know this…” she paused, glancing around the dust covered shop, the rackety bookshelves and flea market furniture. “I love this place. I love being here with you more than I ever loved London with Harrison. And we’re not total idiots.”
    Emily snorted again, and Ingrid met her friend’s eyes. They burst into laughter as they looked again at the garbage heap of the bookstore that they’d been fixing up for months.
    There was little sign of improvement beyond the espresso machine and the area around it. Of course, just beyond were the shelves that had been shoved together and books that were in too tall of stacks and threatening to fall over.
    “Okay,” Emily conceded, “maybe we aren’t stupid. Maybe we could dig out that part of us that graduated from college with honors. I had a career and you were totally the spoiled, airhead housewife who out-maneuvered freaking UW collegiate staff for Harrison at dinner parties and whatever.”
    “Well, yeah,” Ingrid agreed, fluffing her hair. “But just because I never cared what Harrison’s peers were saying didn’t mean that I didn’t understand them. What I’m saying now is, let’s just solve this ourselves.”
    “But you’re an idiot most of the time. A spoiled one. You are a spoiled rotten idiot lazy whore-face.”
    “You’re the one who married dickhead. Let alone slept with him. Gross. You are the idiot. And remember, you can’t speak ill of my husband because he’s dead.”
    “My husband is dead. And I could speak ill of Harrison if I wanted. It seems to be what we do lately. Speak ill of the dead. Maybe they deserve it.”
    “Yes,” Ingrid agreed. “But I didn’t kill my husband. And you’ll make me cry if you speak ill of Harrison and then my mascara will run.”
    “Chicken,” Emily said, flicking cilantro at Ingrid but letting Harrison out of their half-hearted fight. “And, I didn’t kill my husband, whore.”
    “You have yet to prove that. Prove it to me and maybe I’ll believe you and tell the sheriff for you when I decide to make him my own.”
    “Nancy Drew it?” Emily’s next bite was taken with more relish, so Ingrid grinned, spun her chair in a circle before taking another massive bite.
    “Absolutely,” she said around her food, nodding for emphasis and then spun again. “Plus I think I’m gonna get fatter.”
    “Why?” Emily set down her taco for a chocolate. “Also you ordered me to get rid of your fat clothes.”
    “Fatter than those,” Ingrid said. “I like food and I like shopping. If I’m a new size from food, I can get new