Deadly Nightshade Read Online Free PDF Page B

navy blue cap. He bent slightly at the waist in a courtly bow and offered his right arm to Victoria, who took it and smiled up at him. Howland laughed.
    Still holding the folder and the basket, Domingo put his cap back on, and with Victoria on his arm, he walked toward the catwalk leading to the shack. She swept her straw hat off with a girlish gesture, her smile revealing a complicated set of wrinkles upon wrinkles. She was wearing a lavender-colored pant-suit, the pants riding high on her still-shapely long legs. The ends of the yellow ribbon she'd wound around the hat brim fluttered in the breeze. Victoria had tucked a bunch of black-eyed Susans into the ribbon, and the flowers were beginning to droop. She looked up at Domingo with her hooded eyes and gave him a smile.
    “Trapped,” Howland said. “I'd hoped to get away before he got here. Are you finished sweeping?” Elizabeth nodded, and he moved the two chairs back into the shack from the deck.
    “You'd think she'd act her age.” Elizabeth watched her grandmother and Domingo.
    “If you're her age and still have it, you can act any way you want,” Howland said.
    Outside the shack, Domingo escorted Victoria to the bench where she'd sat two nights before, then set the basket beside her.
    Water lapped gently around the pilings. A seagull flew overhead, soaring on the air currents rising from the harbor's surface. The osprey circled; a plane droned overhead.
    Domingo shaded his eyes with his hand.
    “Won't be long before the president arrives,” he said to Victoria. “Then we'll have planes and boats everywhere. Secret Service, the press. It's going to be a mess.” He looked at Victoria, who was searching for something in her pocketbook. “Your lunch won't spoil, will it?”
    “I didn't pack anything that would,” Victoria said.
    She took an envelope out of her pocketbook, then continued to search for something. Elizabeth, who had been watching her from inside the shack, reached into the cup of pens and pencils on the counter and found a thick pen inscribed with the words This number qualifies Victoria Trumbull for the final round of the Million-Dollar Sweepstakes! She walked outside and gave it to her grandmother.
    Victoria pushed her straw hat back on her head, reached up for the ribbons floating in the breeze, and tied them under her chin. “Thank you,” she said, taking the pen.
    As soon as Elizabeth stepped back into the shack, Domingo followed her. He pointed his index finger at her. “You,” he said. “Did you get all those receipts entered into the computer?”
    “Not 'You.' I have a name,” Elizabeth said. “No, I didn't enter them. I haven't even sorted them yet.”
    “Is something holding you up?”
    “I am,” Howland said. “I'm installing your million-dollar computer program.”
    “We're working against time.” Domingo thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and set his feet apart. “The selectmen are getting impatient.”
    “To hell with the selectmen. I can only go so fast.”
    “That's very well for you to say.” Domingo looked up at Howland with dark eyes. “They're not paying you.”
    “No kidding.” Howland's mouth turned down. He put his head back and looked down at the harbormaster through half-closed eyes. Reflections from the water flickered across his high cheekbones, gave his hazel eyes a leonine appearance.
    “You don't understand,” Domingo said. “They're setting me up, I tell you. Especially now, after what happened to Marble.” He patted his shirt pocket, where he kept his pack of Camels.
    “Surely they don't think you had anything to do with Bernie's death?” Elizabeth said.
    “They're looking for a reason to fire me. Not turning over the receipts to the treasurer is reason enough, to their way of thinking.” Domingo stood in the doorway and looked out at the Harbor House. “I'm not handing that loose cash over to the treasurer without getting a receipt. They won't give me a receipt unless we have