Read Online Secret Santa by Cynthia Reese - Free Book Online Page A

their...poop. And there’s the whole bird-flu worry. In China, it was domestic flocks, not commercial, that really started that scare. But—” Charli could see him struggling to one-hand his reporter’s notebook out of his pocket. “I’ll send you a link, okay? If you’re careful when you raise chickens, you’re not likely to get sick. I just don’t want people to think growing your own chickens is as easy as simply throwing some chickens and scratch into your backyard.”
    “Thanks. Now let’s go back and see if ol’ Floyd is a Typhoid Mary.”
    At least I distracted him from wanting to know why I’m here, she thought.
    In the garage, empty of a car, and full of chicken brooders, Floyd was leaning over one waist-high pen. “Hey, Neil! You made it! And Charli, too! I mean Dr. Prescott. ”
    “Hi, Floyd. Thanks for the flowers you sent—and the egg salad.” Suddenly her stomach churned. Had she eaten salmonella-laden homegrown eggs?
    “Hatched those eggs right here! My very own flock of chickens! Can’t beat the taste, can you? Made the mayo myself, too. My mama’s recipe.”
    Honestly, Charli couldn’t remember whether she’d partaken in any of the egg salad. She usually steered clear of any buffet-served dish that had mayo—homemade or otherwise—in it, for precautionary reasons.
    But she was pleased to see Floyd was wearing coveralls and elbow-length gloves. At least he was taking his care seriously.
    Floyd brought out a few chicks to show off, fluffy little balls of feathers he had raised in an incubator. “Got ’em in the garage because the weather’s cold. See my heat lights? Got two of ’em over each brooder in case one of ’em fails. Redundancy. That’s the way to go.”
    Neil dived into the interview, bracing the notebook on the top of the brooder and scrawling notes with his good hand. Charli looked on with dismay. She wasn’t going to have time to wait out the interview for a chance to speak to Floyd alone.
    As she was about to go, Floyd said, “Neil, why don’t you go on and get a picture of my big girls in the backyard? I can’t leave these little guys just now—I’m sexing ’em, and I need to do it now.”
    “Sexing?” Neil’s eyebrows shot up, and Charli burst out laughing.
    “He means he’s trying to detect the gender of the chicks. He’s not doing anything to them.”
    “Oh. Okay. I’ll go get those pictures.” Neil left them, albeit looking a little confused.
    Now Floyd asked, “What’s on your mind, Charli? I guess I didn’t think you’d have anything private to say, or I would have told you Neil was coming.”
    “I can come back—”
    “Nope. Me and the missus are heading down to Savannah for some Christmas shopping, and we’ll probably crash at Lila’s to see the grandkids. I won’t be back for a week. Got a buddy of mine to check on the chickens for me. So? What’s on your mind? Make it quick, because Neil will be back any second.”
    “Um, did you know if my dad had a lot of cash?” The tentative way she asked certainly didn’t fit in with his suggestion to “make it quick.”
    “No. He didn’t. I told him years ago not to take cash. Makes the IRS look at you harder when you run a cash business. Sure, people will write bad checks, but it’s a lot less of a headache than going through an audit. Why?”
    She craned her neck to see where Neil was. Through the garage door, she could see him in the backyard, clicking away with the camera at the chicken coop. “Well, what if he did? I mean, do you know how he might have accumulated a chunk of—”
    “Whoa!” Floyd dropped the chick he was holding back into the brooder and stopped her with one gloved hand. “I don’t need to hear this. But hypothetically, if someone found some cash, if they declare it now, it would mean amended tax returns for all the years the cash could have been accumulated. And it doesn’t stop there. The IRS would probably assume there was more cash, so you’d have