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

show us up.” She walked over to me and whispered, “Don’t let me down this time. The Guild will take this into consideration when they make their annual award.”
    Kurt smiled at me, and held out his hand. “We haven’t met. Kurt Finkel, Finkel Kitchen and Bath.”
    I’d seen his dream kitchen display at Rooms and Blooms. He certainly knew how to lure customers with gleaming granite and fancy cabinet finishes. Local people boasted about their Finkel kitchens.
    Nina blushed when she said, “We used to date. A long, long time ago.”
    Their little reunion was interesting, but I was more concerned about something else. Natasha assigned me the most important room in the house? My rat-fink radar was beeping like crazy. The Natasha I knew would reserve the important room for herself. Something didn’t smell right.
    I walked through the doorway into the oh-so-important room, and wedged behind a sofa to open the drapes. Dust flew from heavy velvet curtains when I pulled them aside. Underneath, blackout curtains blocked the sun. Even parting the blackout curtains didn’t help. A thick shade blocked the window. Mordecai had been determined that no one would see inside his home. I pulled on the shade, and it flew up with a sickly rattle, sending dust through the air like lazy snowflakes. Waving my hand in front of my nose, I went through the same procedure with the other window. When waning daylight dappled through the dirty glass, I realized why the room was important, and why Natasha saddled me with it. Every horizontal surface was covered with personal papers, trash, newspapers, magazines, blankets, cutlery, dishes, and clothes. I couldn’t tell if the floor was hardwood or carpet because it, too, was covered. Boxes, bottles, and stacks of newspapers rose to my elbows, and a patchwork of clothing and blankets covered the floor in a narrow path through the room. Unless I missed my guess, Mordecai spent his final years almost exclusively in this room. As much as one might want to throw out everything en masse, Natasha had generously given me the room because someone had to comb through everything to be sure a stock certificate, cash, or other valuable item wasn’t thrown out by accident.
    My temper flared, but before I could lash out at her, I recognized the wrappers left by the rescue squad near the middle of the room. “He died in here,” I murmured aloud. Guilt weighed on me. Poor Mordecai. He’d lived so close, but I hadn’t taken the time to know him. He’d spent his final years closeted in a dark house, hiding from the world. I’d never brought him homemade bread, or a piece of cake, or food he could warm in the microwave for an easy meal. I never checked on him to see if he felt sick. I never shoveled the walk in front of his house, or offered to rake the leaves. I had been a horrible, too-busy-to-be-bothered neighbor. The least I could do was help clean up the house, and look for the dog he loved so very much.
    Nina followed me through the room. “What a disaster. I pity the people who have to clean this up.”
    “Welcome to the team.”
    “You’re joking.”
    “Look at it as a contribution to the Design Guild.”
    “Why don’t we just write them a check instead?”
    Nina’s husband, a renowned forensic pathologist, could probably afford to write them a hefty check. Unfortunately, I couldn’t. “The Good Life,” my advice column, had been picked up by newspapers in Florida, but the income wasn’t enough to cover the revenue I’d lost through corporate cut-backs. Besides, I was still paying on the sizable mortgage I took to buy Mars out of his share of our home.
    I could hear Natasha talking elsewhere in the house. “So who is this Kurt?” I whispered.
    “Talk about a blast from the past! I was madly and deeply in love with him once. Huh, I can’t even remember why we broke up.”
    Kurt ambled into the family room. Smiling seductively at Nina, he said, “We should get together and catch up.