Corned Beef Murder: Book Two in The Darling Deli Series Read Online Free PDF Page B

married, was she?
    “This is my brother,” Martha said quickly. “He lives in Europe. He came to visit for a few weeks —he’s staying at the Porcupine Inn, silly man. I told him he wouldn’t be a burden to either of us, but he insisted. I just wish that he had come sooner. He only got to see dear Emilia once before the accident.”
    “I didn’t know you two had a brother.” She thought back, trying to remember a single mention of him, but as far as she remembered, Emilia had never even spoken his name once.
    “He’s our half-brother,” Martha clarified. “From our father’s second marriage. We didn’t know him well growing up, but family is important, and we’ve reconnected in recent years.”
    “Sorry,” James said. “I think I interrupted you when I came in. What were you saying?”
    “Oh, um, it was about your sister.” The interruption had thrown Moira off track. “I got a weird call from her a few hours before I… found her.”
    “What did she say?” James asked, raising one eyebrow.
    “Well, I couldn’t understand her very well. I think the storm was making the cell reception worse, but it sounded like she was worried that someone was there… watching her.”
    Martha gasped, covering her mouth with one of her hands. She looked up at her brother with wide, concerned eyes. James, however, just snorted.
    “She hasn’t been in her right mind for a while. It was probably just the mailman that she saw, poor girl. I’m sure the storm confused her,” he said.
    Emilia definitely seemed all there when I saw her the other day , Moira thought with a frown. She didn’t like that James was dismissing the phone call so quickly. Martha, on the other hand, looked worried.
    “She did say something to me a few days before I left,” she began hesitantly. “She told me that some of her old necklaces had gone missing. I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, since she has misplaced things before only for them to turn up in odd places. But what if someone stole them from her?”
    “And then went back for more during the storm, only to be confronted by Emilia. Since your car was gone, someone easily could have thought that the house was empty,” Moira said, her mind working a million miles a minute as she began to piece together what might have happened to her old friend. Martha shuddered.
    “I’m glad that I’ll be heading back down to Traverse City for another few days tonight. I don’t think I could stay alone right now,” she said. “I feel bad; I haven’t touched a thing there since you found her, not even to do the dishes. It just feels so wrong being there without her. I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable there again.”
    “Ladies,” James interrupted. “Don’t get yourselves too worked up. I’m sure if there had been a burglary, the police would have said something. What happened to Emilia was just a terrible accident. Don’t torture yourselves by trying to find a crime when there wasn’t one.”
    Martha sighed, lowering her gaze, her expression defeated. The deli owner felt a sudden surge of dislike towards the man. She disliked being condescended to, and hated seeing the defeated look in her friend’s eyes. Before she could open her mouth to give a biting reply, Martha spoke up in a quiet voice.
    “He’s right, Moira. I’m sorry, I know you’re just trying to help, but I want to lay my sister to rest peacefully, and not keep going over her death every time we see each other. I hope you can understand that. And I’m really sorry that you had to be the one to find her.”
    She stared at her friend in disbelief for a second, and then shook her head. With a sigh, she said, “All right, I’ll stop bringing it up.” Until I get more evidence, she thought. “Does either of you want anything to eat or drink?” she added. “It’s on the house.”

     
     

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Despite what she had told Martha, she couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to