A Catered Birthday Party Read Online Free PDF

wants to drink with me?”
    “Annabel,” Bree said, “I think you’ve had enough.”
    “For your information I haven’t had anything to drink yet. I’m drunk from watching the expression on your faces.”
    “I don’t believe that,” Melissa said.
    “Too bad for you,” Annabel retorted, making a slight curtsey. “Here’s to me and my new ventures and to hell with all of you. I don’t know where any of you are going, but if I had to guess I’d have to say to the bad place, and don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.” Annabel raised her glass to her lips and drank the wine down. A strange expression came over her face. Her eyes widened. Her hand went to her throat. “I’ve been poisoned!” she cried. “Someone has put something in this wine!”
    “Now, dear,” Richard said. “I’m sure you’re fine. You know how you tend to exaggerate.”
    “Are you calling me a liar?!” Annabel screamed. “Are you telling me I don’t know what my wine should taste like? For God’s sake, call a doctor.”
    Trudy started barking. The other dogs joined in. The noise was deafening.
    Richard made no move to get up. Instead he yelled, “No, darling, I’m not saying that you’re lying! I’m simply saying that you tend to over dramatize certain events. Witness the little scenario you just pulled.”
    “It’s true,” Annabel’s best friend, Joyce, said. “Remember when you thought that someone had put salmonella in your tomatoes and it turned out you had a bad case of the stomach flu?”
    “Yes,” Melissa chimed in. “How can you say what you just did after all the time I’ve put in on Trudy? If that isn’t being paranoid what is?”
    Annabel clawed at her throat. “Call the doctor,” she whispered.
    “I will,” Bernie and Libby both said together.
    “No. No. Not you.” She waved her hand at them. “Don’t leave. I want you to promise me…” She paused to gather her strength. “I want you to promise me you’ll find out who murdered me.”
    “Annabel!” Richard cried. “Now, you’ve gone too far.”
    “Promise me,” Annabel said.
    “You’re probably having a heart attack,” Bernie suggested. “Let me call the ambulance.”
    “She does have arrhythmias,” Ramona said as she moved to round up the dogs and take them into the other room. “Bad ones.”
    “Promise me!” Annabel cried, ignoring what Ramona had just said.
    “But,” Libby said as Ramona chased the dogs around the dining room table.
    The color was draining from Annabel’s face. “I won’t let you call the ambulance till I have your solemn promise.”
    “Fine,” Bernie said. “I swear to find your killer if you die.”
    “Me too,” Libby added. “But you’re not going to die. You’re going to be fine.”
    “Put up your hands and say you swear to do this before God,” Annabel said.
    Bernie and Libby looked at each other. Bernie wanted to say, We get it. You’ve made your point . But she didn’t. Obviously Annabel was in some sort of distress and needed to be seen by a doc. Pronto. So she and Libby would do whatever it took to get Annabel there. Bernie put her hand up and swore. Libby followed.
    “Now can we call an ambulance?” Libby asked when they were done.
    “Yes. Now you can call the ambulance,” Annabel replied.
    Bernie was reaching for her cell when Annabel’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and she fell face forward into her soup.
    “I told her she needed to eat more,” Joanna observed.
    “So did I,” Joyce said.
    “Why wasn’t she eating?” Libby asked.
    There was an awkward pause and then Melissa said, “She thought someone was trying to poison her. I told her she was crazy and she needed to get to a doctor. I wish I had been more insistent about it. She needed to be on serious meds.”
    “Maybe,” Bernie told her as she dialed 911, “she wasn’t so crazy after all.”
    “No. She’s nuts,” Richard said as he stared down at the top of his wife’s head.
    On