Read Online Sharp Shooter by Marianne Delacourt - Free Book Online

buried in the snow, legs poking up in the air. I tried to change it – God knows, the woman could probably read my mind from Japan – but it wouldn’t go away. Thick, varicose-veined legs waving in the air.
    Blech.
    As I turned left into Victoria Avenue though, the street was its own distraction. ‘Millionaires’ Row’ they called it. Palatial houses and smug apartments that looked out onto a contented, yacht-strewn river. Some of the houses had their own little piers which looked as picturesque at night as they did in the daytime.
    The address Peter Delgado had given me was both palatial and had its own jetty. I drove up past the house and turned right, parking Mona outside a block of luxury apartments. As I walked back I saw Mercs, Porsches and Beamers sweeping up into the white-gravel driveway.
    Fortunately my LBD and black strappy heels were simple enough to be invisible. You can’t go wrong in black. You can’t go wrong in black , I told myself all the way to the gate.
    I waited there for the car congestion to clear, then clattered up the front path and rang the doorbell.
    A butler answered.
    Butler! Yikes! Lots of my friends’ parents had had expensive houses, but none of them had a butler.
    I told him my name and he checked his list and asked for ID. Satisfied that I was who I said I was, he stood aside, making a sweeping motion with his hand. ‘The ballroom is the first door on the left. Do you have anything you would like to check in, mademoiselle?’
    ‘Uuh?’ I said. ‘Like what?’
    ‘A coat. We also have a no-weapons policy.’
    I shook my head dumbly. I mean I’d been brought up properly, Joanna had seen to that, but no one had ever asked me if I’d like to check in a weapon with my coat.
    For Chrissake, this was Perth!
    ‘Enjoy your evening, Miss Sharp,’ he intoned, then dipped his head to hide the kind of superior grin reserved for people who had gravy stains on their shirt, or sauce on their chin.
    I make a point of standing tall when I’m nervous, so as I entered the ballroom I was ram-rod straight. This put me close on six feet four in my high heels, something I was ordinarily comfortable with . . . though not when every head of a hundred-plus Party Elegant swivelled in my direction and stared.
    The staring was not because of my beautiful posture, not even because I was the tallest person there (because I wasn’t – there were a couple of absolute giants), but because everyone else was dressed in white.
    Peter Delgado appeared from nowhere, an expensively dressed woman with straight, dark hair clutching his arm. The woman’s aura was wintery blue and lumpy, and an unattractive sneer lifted her top lip back from her teeth.
    ‘Good evening, Ms Sharp. This is my wife, Carlotta.’
    Ah, the cut-snake lady . I smiled and held out my hand, despite remembering Garth’s description of her. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
    The woman declined my handshake and shot her husband a searching look.
    ‘Get me a drink, will you?’ Delgado told her.
    She flicked her hair over her shoulder and walked away through the crowd without a backward glance. It was the height of her killer heels that jogged my memory. She’d been standing at Delgado’s reception the other day.
    ‘What the hell are you wearing?’ Delgado said to me between gritted teeth. ‘It’s a “white” party.’
    ‘You told me to wear heels,’ I gritted back. ‘Nothing about the colour of my clothes.’
    ‘Francine rang you.’
    Francine? The Giggler? ‘You mean your PA?’
    He nodded and swung me into a position so that his body partly obscured mine. Over his shoulder I could see people going back to their conversations. Show over.
    ‘Yess,’ he hissed.
    ‘Well maybe you’d better get yourself a new PA with an IQ higher than her boob measurement, ’cos that one clearly can’t understand plain English. She never contacted me,’ I said, furious, then I shook him off me and tried to think of something else to talk about.