Chilling Effect Read Online Free PDF Page B

look.
    “Don’t you think it’s weird that none of Palmer’s neighbors came
    by or even popped a head out to see what all the commotion was?”
    Yes, he did. But there was no way he was going to admit that and wind her up. He knew her too well. Th e last thing he wanted
    to do was increase her interest in the murder. Th ey needed to eat
    their steak, tip their waitress, and get off the freaking reservation before she got sucked into the case. Th is was their vacation, not an opportunity for her to prove her mettle to that jerk Slater.
    She was staring into his eyes, expectantly waiting for an answer.
    He scratched the side of his neck and jammed a large forkful of
    potatoes into his mouth to buy some time.
    “Mmm . . . maybe a little? But Chief Johnson’s glad-handing
    aside, you don’t know what kind of community this is. Not every
    place is as neighborly as Walnut Bottom, Pennsylvania, Roo. When
    you were staying in DC, do you think your neighbors would have
    stuck their noses into a criminal investigation?”
    She twisted her mouth into an aggravated little bow. “Th at’s
    not the same thing.”
    “Why not?”
    “For one thing, nobody’s from DC. Virtual y everyone’s a trans-plant from somewhere else. But nobody lives on a reservation unless they were born there. Th is place ought to be close-knit. Even if Isaac Palmer’s neighbors hated his guts and are having a party right now, they should have been snooping around the scene to see what was
    going on. Th at’s just the way it works.”
    He bit down on his lower lip to keep from reminding her that
    she wasn’t exactly the expert on Native American reservations she
    was pretending to be. For one thing, her tribe didn’t even have hav an
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    CHILLING EFFECT
    offi cially recognized reservation back home—just a sad little cluster of falling-down shacks. For another, she’d left that life behind when she was just a kid. She’d grown up in a white-bread community no diff erent from him. Her adoptive parents probably would
    have gone out and off ered the investigating police offi cer lemonade if a crime had happened in her neighborhood, but the crime
    in question would more likely have been a case of a house being
    egged or some kids stealing a case of beer out of a neighbor’s garage than an execution-style murder. But he fi gured saying as much
    would hardly be prudent. And prudence and marriage were two
    great tastes together.
    “What?” she demanded.
    “Nothing. I don’t know anything about this place. And neither
    do you. What I do know is there’s chocolate decadence cake on the
    menu. Let’s get some dessert and get back to our own hotel, get back to the point of this trip. What do you say?”
    She shook her head and smiled. Chocolate cake was her weak-
    ness—shoot, it was more like her Kryptonite.
    “I’m onto you, Joe Jackman.”
    “Is that a promise? Because I’d sure like to have you on me . . .”
    He trailed off .
    A faint blush crept over her cheeks and she lowered her eyes.
    “We’ll see. But cake fi rst.”
    He raised his glass to that.
    Joe headed to the parking garage to fetch the Jeep while Aroostine
    used the ladies’ room. After wending her way through the casino
    fl oor and getting turned around multiple times, she fi nally managed to fi nd the cashier’s cage and then found a route to the exit and the valet stand from there.
    33
    MELISSA F. MILLER
    She was sober and had not been gambling; and yet, her brief trav-
    els through the casino had left her feeling overstimulated, dazed, and wrung out. Or it could be the whole fi nding-a-dead-body part. Right.
    She tripped out into the foyer and blinked into the obnoxiously
    bright fl uorescent light.
    “Can I get your car?” the valet asked. His white smile was nearly
    as blinding as the lights.
    “Oh, no, thanks. We self-parked.”
    She spotted a bench near the bushes lining the entryway. She
    plopped down and eased her feet out of her dress pumps, fl exed
    her toes,