Read Online Mayhem at the Orient Express by Kylie Logan - Free Book Online Page B

Chandra popped out of her seat and scampered into the hallway to tug
     on her boots. “I’ll go home and be back in a jiffy. I’ve got a couple bottles of stuff.”
    “Oh, no.” Luella moved pretty darned fast for a senior citizen. She was out of her
     chair and had a hand on Chandra’s arm to stop her before Kate and I caught up. “No
     way you’re going to bring some nasty, herby stuff over here and tell us it’s good
     for us. We’d all drink it, just to be polite, and I’ll tell you what, I don’t feel
     much like being polite. Not tonight.”
    • • •
    Lucky for us, Chandra returned with a six pack of beer, but it wasn’t the only thing
     she brought from home. No sooner had she stepped into her rainbow house than she realized
     her electricity was off, too, and so was her heat. She returned with a sleeping bag
     and a promise to stay out of the way if only I’d let her sleep there for the night,
     and I told her not to worry about it and promptly showed her up to Suite #3.
    That taken care of, I rummaged through the freezer and found margarita mix. And as
     long as we were in the kitchen crushing ice and blending, I pulled out a jar of salsa,
     a bag of tortilla chips, and some brie and crackers and set them on the granite counter
     to the right of the stove so we could pull up tall stools and make ourselves at home.
    Believe it or not, I was halfway through my first margarita before a weird thought
     hit. “Hey, Orient Express.”
    Kate dredged a chip through the bowl of salsa. “Not open. Because of the murder. We
     can’t order Chinese food.”
    “Not what I meant.” There was a string of gooey brie on my finger, and I wiped it
     away with one of the purple cocktail napkins I’d set out. “Peter’s restaurant was
     the Orient Express, and we’re reading . . .” I used the royal
we
just to be polite and as a way of including Kate and Chandra even though they hadn’t
     read the book. “We’re reading
Murder on the Orient Express
, and there was a murder at—”
    “The Orient Express.”
    We all finished the thought together. Had it been any other night, we might have laughed.
     Instead, our hands stilled over snack dishes and libations and our expressions sobered.
    A shiver snaked over my shoulders. “It’s weird when you think about it. I mean, the
     similarities.”
    Shaken from her momentary paralysis, Kate sipped her margarita. “There’s the name
     of the restaurant, of course. That’s a no brainer.”
    “And the note!” It was the first I had a chance to mention the note I’d read when
     it blew off Peter’s front counter, and I told them all about it.
    “‘You won’t get away with this. I won’t ever forget. I swear, I’ll make you pay.’”
     Luella repeated the words I’d told her I’d seen cut out and pasted to the page. “What
     do you suppose it means?”
    “I didn’t know then and I don’t know now,” I admitted. “But think about how weird
     it is. There was a threatening note in the book, too. It was sent to the victim before
     he was killed.”
    “Creepy.” Kate wrapped her arms around herself.
    “Strange.” Chandra put down the chip she was about to take a bite out of.
    “And we’ve got a snowstorm, too,” Luella said. “That’s just like in the book, too.
     The victim and the detective and the suspects, that’s why they’re all together. The
     train they’re traveling in hits a snowbank and is stuck. They’re trapped.”
    “We’re kind of trapped, too.” Though my kitchen was newly renovated and brightly lit,
     Chandra’s gaze darted from corner to corner. “It’s like the movie. All the suspects
     gathered together with no place to go. No one can leave. No one can arrive.”
    Well, not exactly, because for the second time that night, someone knocked on my front
     door.

6
    C onsidering the kind of night it had been, I wasn’t taking any chances. In an effort
     to look as decent as possible when the situation was anything