Read Online Never Thwart a Thespian: Volume 8 (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) by Edie Claire - Free Book Online

cried. “It’s been raining.”
    Ned looked down at them both dubiously, his shaggy gray hair tousling in the breeze. “Ms. Frances says we gotta keep the bats out.”
    Right above where Ned had placed the top of the ladder was an attic vent boasting holes the size of fists. “I’m sure neither Frances nor Bess want you to do anything dangerous,” Cara called back. “Maybe you should wait until the roof is dry?”
    “Won’t make any difference,” came a husky voice from behind them. “He could fall through just as easily in the sunshine.”
    Leigh and Cara turned to see a woman barely five feet tall — and that while wearing four-inch heels — standing behind them in a crisp business suit. She carried a professional camera similar to Cara’s and was wearing a hands-free earpiece so large in comparison to her tiny ear that it dominated the entire left side of her face.
    “Excuse me?” Cara remarked. Her tone was superficially polite, but Leigh knew her cousin well enough to know that she had taken an instant dislike to the stranger.
    “Sonia Crane, attorney at law,” the woman rasped. Her voice sounded like something one might expect from a retired miner with emphysema, not a woman the size of a fourth grader. “Crane and Associates,” she finished, extending a rigid, perfectly straight hand first to Cara, then to Leigh.
    Leigh attempted to shake, but might as well have attempted to engage a slab of granite. The woman was probably around their own age, but her overzealously tanned skin was leathery and her perfectly tailored clothes reeked of cigarette smoke.
    Leigh started to introduce herself, but Sonia cut her off. “It’s only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured on these premises,” the attorney pronounced. “And I can assure you that the lawsuits will be crippling.”
    Leigh’s eyes traveled upward again. Ned had reached the top of the ladder and was placidly tacking the screened wire over the attic vent, ignoring all three women.
    “Were you planning to injure someone?” Cara asked sweetly.
    Leigh fought back a grin. Cara didn’t dislike very many people, particularly on first sight. Leigh knew it was petty, but she had always secretly enjoyed watching her nearly perfect cousin act less than perfectly; and for whatever reason, this tiny woman had Cara’s rarely used claws just itching to be unsheathed.
    Sonia’s expression remained bland. “Crane and Associates doesn’t deal with personal injury law,” she stated, as if this answered the question. “We do real estate and property law. And I can assure you, with my over twenty years of experience in the field, that this building as it stands is an accident waiting to happen, ergo, an investor’s worst nightmare.”
    Aha, Leigh thought. No doubt this was the attorney Bess had mentioned earlier — the one who wanted the property herself and who was, even now, trying to buy it back from Gordon Applegate.
    “If you’re here because you’ve been hired to do some promotional work for the Thespian Society,” Sonia continued authoritatively, “I would suggest you rethink. This building will never open to the public. It won’t pass inspection.” She snapped a quick picture of Ned on the roof. “You there!” she called. “I wouldn’t trust that ceiling if I were you! It could be rotted clean through!”
    Ned granted her only the briefest of glances, frowned, and returned to his work.
    Sonia harrumphed, then snapped another picture.
    Cara started to say something, but Leigh cut her off. “We were told that the building was declared sound by two building inspectors,” she said, intentionally sounding uncertain. “Is that not true?”
    Sonia drew herself up to her full, pixie-like height and leaned closer to Leigh. “Private inspectors can be paid off,” she said heavily. “But the borough has final authority in granting the necessary permit… or not. This place is clearly a firetrap, if nothing else. Regardless, if