Darlene Franklin - Dressed for Death 03 - Paint Me a Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

father?” Dina asked with clipped syllables unlike her normal speech.
    Jenna’s face drained of color. Dina’s words had stung. “Yes. There was no one else.” Jenna stopped without further explanation.
    “And you didn’t think I should know, before he showed up here in Grace Gulch? What if he had approached me and said, ‘Hey, kid, how you doing?’”
    Jenna looked at Dina then, fire glinting in her eyes. “He wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t. He never knew about you. I never told him.” The fire dimmed, replaced by a sheen of tears. “And now he’ll never know the beautiful girl he helped create. Oh, Dina, I’m so sorry!”
    Dina blinked. “Oh, Brad’s not dead. At least not that I know of. That’s what I came to tell you.”
    “Then who was it in the studio?” I asked.
    “Brad’s girlfriend. Finella Gaynor.”
    “Brad was dating Finella ?” Jenna sounded genuinely surprised.
    Dina nodded. “They’ve been seen together at the Gulch several times. I don’t know how serious it was. I’m checking into it.” A reporter’s enthusiasm infused her words.
    That would have made Finella’s ex, Ham Gaynor, furious if he knew about it. Motive for murder? Stop it, I reminded myself. I couldn’t view every death as a potential homicide.
    “So Brad never knew about me.” Dina had returned to the subject most important to her.
    “No. I’m sure I was no more than a summer fling for him. I could tell he was going places, even then.” Jenna reached out a hand to trace Dina’s cheek. “Every time I look at you, I see him, you know. You have a lot of his spunk, his sensitivity, his zest for life.”
    Dina snorted. “I’m no artist.”
    “I beg to differ.” Jenna managed a small smile. “Your photos capture a lot more than a story. I have thought of displaying them in the museum, only I’d be accused of nepotism.”
    “Really?” Dina drawled the word, stretching the two syllables into three. I wasn’t sure if she was expressing shock of disbelief.
    “Now that you know—do you want me to tell Brad? To introduce you?”
    Dina didn’t answer for a moment. “No one seems to know where he is. No one has seen him since last night.”
    I remembered his surprising absence from the press conference.
    Jenna’s eyebrows knit in frustration. “He’s missing ? Oh, no.”
    Her unease washed over me, and a nagging suspicion refused to let go. Junior kicked as if in sympathy. “Tell me. Do the police know how Finella died?”
    Dina looked from me to Jenna and back again. “They’re not sure—but it looks like she died from a blow to her head.”
    “Murder.” I breathed the word. “Again.”
    “Brad!” Jenna cried.
    Dina and I must have gaped at her, because she sputtered. “Don’t you see? Brad’s girlfriend—his studio—the police are bound to suspect he did it!”
    ~
    Supper was already fixed when I arrived home. We didn’t have the chicken fried steak I had planned, of course, but I could live with Gilda’s version of home cooking.
    My comfy dining room table looked foreign. Gilda had unearthed the linen tablecloth she had given us for a wedding present—unused in our two years of marriage—and set out my best china. Add candles and all we needed were wine glasses to make the setting perfect for the front cover of Bon Apetit. Alas, Audie and I didn’t partake of alcoholic beverages. All this, for a midweek dinner.
    “Mother made deep-dish pizza. You’ll love it.”
    I could buy it at the local pizza parlor. Stop being catty . I smiled my thanks and took a slice of the meat-heavy pie.
    Tuesday nights used to mean heading over to the Crazy W, the family ranch, for a meal. Now we gathered only once a week, after church on Sunday. Sometimes we met for lunch during the week, now that both Dina and Jenna worked downtown as well. I said a prayer for my sisters as we settled down to the meal. Working through the secrets revealed today would not be easy.
    When Audie turned his pizza crust end