Read Online Murder on the Lunatic Fringe (Jubilant Falls Series Book 4) by Debra Gaskill - Free Book Online

cook you complete Russian meal.”
    “That would be very nice,” Duncan said. “We’d love it.”
    As Jerome drove us back to the Lunatic Fringe, I laid my hand on his muscular thigh.
    “They seem like nice people,” I said tentatively. “It would be nice to have friends here.”
    Jerome nodded. “I’m sure they are, but we’ve got to be careful. They can’t know the truth.”
    “Is that why you don’t like Addison?”
    “I don’t trust anyone who could possibly blow the lid off our situation. It’s too dangerous.”
    I sighed as Jerome turned the Cherokee into the drive. “Jerome, wait! Stop!”
    I pointed to the pasture where the llamas paced nervously up and down the fence line, making their odd, rhythmic, high-pitched alert sound, one they made only when they sensed danger.
    Jerome slammed the car into park. He pulled a handgun from the holster around his ankle as we both jumped from the Jeep and ran toward the fence. Jerome got there first.
    “Oh God.” He knelt on the ground. It was dark, but I could see the carcass just outside the fence line.
    It was Dasha, my cashmere ram. His throat was slit, nearly severing his magnificent head. The wound continued down his gray belly, his intestines spilling onto the grass, dyeing the dirt beneath the green grass a dark, dark red.
    Sobbing, I sank to the ground.
    “He’s still warm,” Jerome whispered. “This just happened. Who ever did this knew we were gone and knew when we were coming back. Katya, we’re being watched.”
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 9 Addison
     
    “Goo-ood morning, darlin’!”
    I don’t know what the hell time Earlene Whitelaw got into the office in the morning and I still wasn’t convinced she did anything but delegate, but I had hopes I’d be able to get my first cup of work coffee poured before I had to deal with her. So much for my luck.
    Figures. It was Monday.
    Sliding into the employee break room just outside the pressroom, I mumbled my morning greetings.
    “Penny—Addison, I was just thinking…” Earlene probably wasn’t that tall, but with Miss Texas pageant hair sprayed high above her head and her insistence on wearing six-inch stilettos, she towered over me. She clenched her hands together and smiled hopefully at me, like a recalcitrant four-year-old, looking for forgiveness.
    “What, Earlene?” I wanted to pound my head against the coffee machine.
    “I was thinking about bringing a group of residents together, in a-a—” Her Texas accent was thicker than most natives’.
    “Focus group?”
    “Yes. A focus group.”
    Oh, Jesus. Don’t do this to me, I thought. As the newspaper business continued to limp along, I heard stories from other editors at chain newspapers about how head office bean-counters who had never spent a day in a newsroom suddenly decided it was a great idea to bring in folks from the community to find out what they thought of the news coverage. The suits would sit and listen to what people thought, nod sagely, promise the moon and then dump the responsibility on the newsroom, which was already trying to do twice as much with half the staff.
    The Journal-Gazette struggled ever since the economic crash, with outdated computers and a second-rate website that crashed on a regular basis. Advertising revenue was slowly coming out of the tank, but the days of a twenty-eight-page, two-section hometown paper were long gone, thanks to the Internet and Craigslist.
    “What exactly do you think you’ll get out of a focus group?” I poured my coffee and started toward the narrow stairs that led to the second-floor newsroom, knowing she’d follow me, teetering on bright yellow stilettos with turquoise flowers on the toes.
    “Well, I believe we’d hear what the community thinks.”
    I stopped half way up the stairs and turned around. “Earlene, I can tell you what the community thinks: They want more local news coverage. That takes a bigger staff. They want a bigger paper. That takes