Read Online The Murder of a Queen Bee by Meera Lester - Free Book Online

curve, Abby steered her car to the widest section of the shoulder and parked, set the hand brake, and cut off the engine.
    Her hands shook. She leaned her head against the steering wheel and struggled for composure. Sugar pawed at the window, barking and whining without letup. Smelling pee, Abby lifted her head and realized the dog had peed on the seat. She ordered Sugar to stop barking, but she knew the dog was only feeling what she herself was experiencing—alarm and fear. Slowly and rhythmically, Abby began to stroke the dog’s neck.
    â€œThere, there, girl,” she cooed. “Scary, I know, but it’s over.” The dog yipped once, twice more, and then licked Abby’s hand. “We’re safe. That’s what matters,” Abby said. She hugged Sugar close.
    Looking around for something to wick the urine—a napkin, a towel, or even an old shirt—and finding nothing, Abby remembered placing Fiona’s scarf in the glove box before driving away from Fiona’s cottage after her unsettling conversation with Jack Sullivan. This situation called for desperate measures. She pulled out the saffron-colored cotton scarf stamped in red with the symbol Aum scripted in Sanskrit, the trident of Shiva, and the Kalachakra, the wheel of time. Abby thought that it was odd that Fiona, raised Catholic, had lived in a commune that embraced Eastern traditions. And it was strange, too, that she had gotten involved with a boyfriend who practiced voodoo Haitian style. But Fiona was a woman of many contradictions and interests. The search for spiritual meaning in life, a stint at commune living, and growing and selling herbs were all expressions of her free spirit. Wherever you are, Fiona Mary Ryan, I hope you know I admired you, and I mean no disrespect by using your scarf this way.
    Abby compressed the scarf into a wad and dabbed it repeatedly against the wet spot. She thought about the maniac in the silver truck, a danger to anyone on the road. After dropping the scarf on the floorboard, Abby turned the Jeep around, maneuvered it back onto the road, and headed in the direction the silver truck had gone.
    Only after she had passed the big red barn at Doc Danbury’s driveway could she see down the other side of the mountain, where the road stretched out in long undulations. The silver pickup was tailgating a slow-moving winery truck loaded with oak barrels. Passing was impossible because of the line of cars streaming from the other direction. Abby accelerated. When she’d closed the gap between the Jeep and the silver pickup, she jotted down the license plate number using the pencil and pad she kept in the console.
    After the last oncoming car had passed, the pickup shot around the winery truck. Just when Abby lost sight of the pickup, the winery truck pulled off, giving her an open view of the road ahead and the silver truck as it turned right onto a compacted dirt road. Abby continued to follow, undaunted by a message scrawled in white paint on an old fence board nailed to a tree— NO TRESPASSING. VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT .
    Eventually, she arrived at a stand of oaks at the top of a high hill. Pulling over in the shade, Abby watched the silver truck park near a rustic cabin. Who would want to live in such isolation? The answer came as easily as a bloom on a mustard stalk in springtime—woodsmen, potheads, drug dealers, survivalists, anarchists, and people desiring to disappear for a while. Abby wondered whether the truck driver belonged to one of those groups. Parked at such a high elevation, she could easily see the creek, the woods, and even the tall pole with the Christmas star on it that marked Doc Danbury’s tree farm and his vineyard.
    When the man climbed out of the truck and disappeared into the cabin’s dark interior, Abby squinted against the sun. Difficult to tell, but she estimated his height to be six feet. Grungy clothes, a scraggly gray beard, and salt-and-pepper hair