Read Online Poisoned Pin: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 2) by Laney Monday - Free Book Online

around. Not that Riggins would think about Blythe’s panties. Ugh, I hope not. That was the last thing I needed right now. A guy that made my heart flutter opting for my sister instead of me. Even if I had no intention of starting a relationship with him in the next century, I really didn’t want to go there. Never again.
    Riggins led Harvey up the stairs. It took a little reassuring from me, but Harvey went along with him once I convinced him I’d arranged for Riggins to take care of things. Before I got back on the mat, I texted Riggins. “After you talk him down, do you think you could get Harvey out the back door without a commotion? Kids are scared.”
    “I’ll try.”
    Great. Do not try, Riggins. Do. Or I’m do-o-o-omed .  
    “I’m so sorry about the interruption,” I told the parents. “Harvey just lost his nephew. I think he got a little attached to me because I tried to help when he—” A four-year-old looked up at me with big, gray eyes. I was about to say was dying . I switched to, “wasn’t breathing.” Hopefully that sounded less scary. I was going to give these kids nightmares if I wasn’t careful. “But Officer Riggins is going to take care of everything,” I finished with a great, big smile.
    “I seen Crazy Harvey be crazy lots of times,” Annalisa, a six-year-old who seemed to be the resident know-it-all, announced.
    “Great. Well. Let’s use nice words, okay?”
    I joined Blythe in getting the kids to practice escaping from the pin. About ten minutes later, as I was high-fiving my little ones good-bye and the middle ones were arriving, I heard the back door open and shut. While we welcomed the new batch of kids onto the mat, I saw Will’s cruiser drive by the front of the dojo, Harvey in the passenger seat. Will must be taking him home. I let out a breath of relief. But still, I couldn’t completely shake a nagging worry about Harvey.
    I texted Will. “Can you come by around 9:15? Want to talk bout Harvey.”
    “Ok.”
    “Thanks.”
    I put my phone away, just a little disappointed. Why had I hoped he’d have more to say than that? Why couldn’t I shake this silly crush?

11

    Blythe embraced me with a squeal and we did a little hug-dance. “Aside from that little interruption, that was awesome!” she said.
    I grabbed a Coke out of the mini fridge we kept in the dojo, stocked with bargain ice packs Blythe and I had made, using baggies and a huge bag of ice from the Cherry Bowl, Bonney Bay’s only grocery store. Ice makes everything better. Or, at least it makes kids and parents feel like you’ve done something to make their bumps and lumps better. You know that saying about taking your lumps? In judo we definitely learn how to do just that.
    In five minutes our last class of the night would start. We’d scheduled things pretty tight, back to back, so that families with kids in two different classes wouldn’t have to wait around too long, or leave and then have to come right back. Also to get them all in during the prime evening hours. We happened to not have any siblings in both the middle and the last class, so we had a nice couple minutes to ourselves.
    There were just four girls in the oldest group, which was no surprise. It’s hard to get older girls to try something like judo for the first time. The little kids were fun, but I was really looking forward to working with this group. To tell the truth, though it’s great fun to watch little ones do judo, this was really the ideal age to teach. They were young enough to be flexible, both physically and mentally, but they were mature enough to have an attention span of more than five seconds. They were like sponges. Like clay, ready to be molded, like—you get the idea.
    We started on time, with three out of the four girls we were expecting. Oh, well. One no-show wasn’t bad. Blythe asked Sammi to demonstrate one of the falls she’d learned the night before, and I swear, I thought I saw a tiny bit of a smile when she