Carolyn G. Hart Read Online Free PDF Page A

when I realized I would be following her next week. However, I’ve given a lot of thought to the program I plan to present.”
    Ego, ego, Annie thought. Elliot can’t bear to spend a whole evening listening to another writer, so he’s going to horn in on Emma. She got ready to move forward and cut him off before he did any more damage.
    “I’ve been doing some investigating, some
real
investigating. You know, digging out those delicious little secrets people try so hard to hide.”
    “More true crime? Some shoplifter’s memoirs?” Fritz Hemphill’s thin voice was sardonic.
    Elliot’s head swiveled toward Fritz.
    Annie was reminded unpleasantly of a snake.
    Fritz wrote male adventure with blood, guts, and enough macho for a battalion of Green Berets.
    “Not a shoplifter. No, I have something much more special in mind. My publisher and I are convinced this will be a best-seller.”
    “Like
Kiss a Stranger?”
Fritz asked sarcastically.
    Oh, wow. Only Fritz would be courageous or crazy enough to say that aloud. Everyone knew Elliot’s last book was a bomb and had been remaindered six months after it came out. It was a true-crime book, a horrific description of a Hollywood starlet’s foolish and deadly passion for a hitchhiker.
    Someone snickered, probably Harriet.
    Elliot’s face darkened, but his voice remained pleasant. “No, this little volume will knock their socks off. You know how the public has this enormous appetite to know all about their idols? Dirty laundry and all? Well, I’ve decided to tell everybody the truth about a very special group. Don’t you agree it will make a hell of a book to tell all about some well-known writers? Mystery writers, that is.”
    The silence was absolute.
    “The real truth—all the gritty, nasty little secrets.” Elliot’s eyes glistened with malicious pleasure as he scanned the frozen faces of his listeners.
    “Sounds boring to me,” Emma said lightly, but her light blue eyes sparkled angrily. “Not enough sex appeal, Elliot.”
    “I can assure you, my dear, there will be plenty of sex.”
    That was last week. Everyone had stayed for Emma’s presentation, but they all scurried out afterward without the usual good-natured bickering and jousting. All week long Annie had procrastinated on deciding what—if anything—she could do to prevent tonight’s explosion.
    It was her shop. It was up to her.
    But, after all, these people were adults. They certainlydidn’t need her to play Big Momma. They might even resent it.
    It was her store—and she resented Elliot using her evening to poke and gouge at her friends. Moreover, she wasn’t about to let him believe he’d cowed her with his threats to raise her rent.
    Okay. She would …
    Annie sat bolt upright in the cane chair and looked toward the central aisle. She couldn’t see it, of course, not from her comfortable lounging spot on this side of the diagonal bookshelves. She didn’t have to see the central aisle or into the coffee area to recognize that sound. When the back door to Death On Demand was pulled shut, a loose cupboard in the receiving room always snapped to with a sharp crack, like a .22 rifle.
    She reminded herself that it was Sunday morning, she was alone in her store, and the back door was locked. But she’d heard that sharp, unmistakable crack.
    Annie slipped to her feet, skirted the table, another cane chair, a floor lamp, and the clinging fronds of a fern. The central aisle was shadowy. Afraid she might attract another Mrs. Brawley, she hadn’t turned on the lights. She’d wanted peace and quiet to ponder her problems. So it was quite dim here in the center of the store. She could see a portion of the coffee area. It was utterly quiet, utterly still.
    She opened her mouth to call out, but there was something so heavy and ominous in the waiting silence that her throat closed.
    This is silly.
    But that cupboard
had
slammed shut. She’d
heard
it.
    Stealthily, feeling vaguely foolish, she edged