Dying Art (A Dylan Scott Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

grief, you’re up early,” Dylan said. “Am I getting a royal send-off?”
    “I couldn’t sleep for the noise you lot are making. When will you be back, Dad?”
    “I don’t know, but I’ll phone, okay?”
    Luke nodded. “You’ll be back for the match on Saturday, won’t you?”
    “I certainly will.” He drank his coffee, put his mug on the table and picked up his bags. “Time I was out of here, folks.” He kissed Freya on the top of her head. “Be good, gorgeous.” He was treated to more gibberish. He ruffled Luke’s already untidy hair. “Behave yourself and do your homework.”
    Luke pulled a face and grinned. “Yeah. Right.”
    He dropped a quick kiss on his mother’s cheek. “Don’t get arrested on a drugs charge.”
    She smacked him on the arm. “Get out of here.”
    He would have given Bev a quick kiss but she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and clung to him. “Drive carefully, won’t you? Send me a text to let me know you got there safely, and then ring me tonight, okay?”
    “Yes, yes and yes.”
    She hugged him. “Love you.”
    “Love you, too.” He kissed her and moved out of her grasp. “I love you all, but I’m still out of here.”
    He had a funeral to attend.

Chapter Four
     
    Wind blew from every direction, carrying with it icy rain.
    Dylan stood with Maddie and her husband Tim beneath a poor excuse for an umbrella that Maddie had taken from her bag. It would have struggled to provide protection for a child, never mind three adults. Giant oak trees, dripping above them, added to the misery of the occasion.
    Maddie and Prue’s parents, two aunts, and an uncle—who’d had the sense to put a hipflask in his jacket pocket—stood next to them. Maddie’s mother, thin and gaunt, was being supported by her husband. Dylan felt sure she would have snapped in two if it weren’t for her husband’s firm grip on her arm.
    A small crowd had gathered but no one seemed sure what to do.
    “I suppose we wait here until the hearse arrives,” Maddie said.
    Chandler glanced at his watch for the third time in as many minutes. “It shouldn’t be long.”
    Tim Chandler was nothing like the man Dylan had expected Maddie to marry. He’d pictured someone disgustingly handsome whose every waking thought was filled with Maddie. She was good pedestal material yet Chandler had barely glanced her way. He wasn’t holding her hand as she waited for the arrival of her sister’s coffin or assuring her that he’d help her through this ordeal. He seemed impatient, as if he longed to be away. Dylan supposed he did. They all did. Who the hell wanted to be at this church on such a grey, wet, windy and depressing day?
    Maddie cut a lonely figure. She’d spurned her mother’s attempts at conversation and hadn’t spoken a word to her father. He’d kept his distance from her too. Perhaps she’d made it clear that she preferred to be alone with her grief.
    “I bet she didn’t want flowers.” Maddie pointed to several arrangements that had been left by the porch. “I don’t suppose she wanted a funeral like this either. Being buried at sea in one of those do-it-yourself basket affairs would be more to Prue’s taste.”
    “We’ve done the best we can,” Chandler said. “She hadn’t made arrangements so there’s nothing to be done about it.”
    “Of course she hadn’t made arrangements. Who the hell makes arrangements for their funeral in their thirties?” Maddie rubbed her temples as if she had a migraine.
    “I’m sure it will be fine.” Dylan felt obliged to say something and that was the best he could come up with.
    More people arrived. He wondered if Prue had known them or if her unwanted spotlight in the media had brought them here out of curiosity. The latter, he guessed, and he was almost glad the weather was so awful. It would keep a lot at home.
    He cast his glance over the crowd and wondered if her killer was present.
    Dylan wore black as a mark of respect but he was in a