Diva 03 _ Diva Paints the Town, The Read Online Free PDF Page A

finally going out with Detective Wolf Fleishman. Our schedules made it difficult to get together, but we’d both vowed to make tonight’s date. “I’m busy tonight,” I said, “but you and Mars could get started. Why don’t you meet Natasha and me at Mordecai’s just after four, and we can see what needs to be done?”

    At a quarter past four, I perched on the steps of the front porch to Mordecai’s house and pulled my coat closed against the wind. Working in the springlike atmosphere of Rooms and Blooms had made me forget how dismal it was outside. I checked my watch and hoped Natasha wouldn’t be late since I wanted to shower before Wolf picked me up for our date.
    “Em-ma-line? Emma-puppy . . .” I bent forward enough to see Nina crouching with a piece of fried chicken in her hand.
    I was about to pretend to bark when a soft “woof” came from behind Nina. She glanced up, and promptly fell over in a highly undignified plop onto her rear end. From my vantage point, I could only see Nina’s tomato-red face and a hand reaching out to her.

THREE

    From “ THE GOOD LIFE” :
    Dear Sophie,
     

    I inherited some money from an elderly aunt and would like to use it to fix up my house. My husband wants to finish the basement as a man cave with a theater. I think we should update our old, not yet vintage, kitchen. We’d appreciate your opinion.
     
—Spelunking in Springfield
     
    Dear Spelunking,
     
    Updated kitchens and bathrooms bring the most return on a remodeling investment. Maybe you can work on the man cave after the kitchen is done.
     
—Sophie
    I nearly fell off the steps in an effort to see.
    The hand belonged to a man with boyish good looks, although I judged him to be in his forties. A swatch of dark hair fell into his eyes, and an endearingly crooked grin topped a square chin.
    “Nina Reid.” He said her name softly, almost dream-like. “You’re about the last person in the world I expected to see.” He hoisted her up, and Nina dusted herself off, her face and ears still scarlet.
    Her eyes sparkled in a way I had never seen before. In a voice that was low and husky, she managed to choke out “Kurt.”
    After a long moment of staring into each other’s eyes, they broke into self-conscious laughter, hugged, and talked at the same time.
    “Gosh, I’m such a mess. Our neighbor died, and I’m looking for his dog.”
    “You live around here?”
    “A few houses down. What are you doing here?”
    “I’m meeting Natasha—you know, the TV Diva—about doing a kitchen renovation for her show. Have you been to Rooms and Blooms? You should come by to see my exhibit.”
    Nina beamed at him. “I hear you’re the kitchen designer of choice in Old Town.”
    Kurt stepped forward. Squinting at the graceful front porch, he said, “Is this Professor Artemus’s house?”
    “You knew him?” asked Nina.
    “I was one of his students. I remember coming here for a party a long time ago. So the old guy finally passed on. That’s too bad. He was brilliant, you know, almost a genius. He was one of those cool professors who let his students learn by doing.” He grinned and held his fingers in a circle, like he was holding an invisible ball. “We had to build structures to protect a raw egg, then he had us lob them off the roof to see whose egg survived intact.”
    Natasha’s arrival interrupted his memories. She promptly greeted Kurt by name and doled out keys to Kurt and me. She unlocked the front door, and when Nina tagged along inside, Natasha asked, “Are you on Sophie’s team, too?”
    “Oh, yes!” Nina sidled up to me in the entrance hall and whispered, “What team?”
    Natasha flicked a light switch, and a colonial-style brass chandelier shed light in the dark foyer. “The first thing everyone has to do is open curtains. I’ve never seen a house this dark. Sophie, your room is there to the left. It’s the most important room in the house, so I’m expecting miracles. We cannot let Iris