Fat Chance Read Online Free PDF Page B

approximately two inches in diameter. The side facing up was familiar. It bore the green enameled palm fronds and polo stick logo of The Palm Beach Polo Club. Adrenaline raced through my veins like a triple shot of Brazilian Roast. I knew I had to turn it over to the police, but I hesitated as a million fears, questions, and possibilities raced through my mind.
    “Stop making yourself strange,” I chided in a whisper. “What are the chances?” I slowly flipped the medallion. My heart fell to my feet as I read the inscription…
    Love you, Daddy. F.A.T.
    I’d had those words engraved on the medallion myself. A gift I’d given nearly twenty years earlier. A memento to Jonathan for being named Club Player of the Year at The Palm Beach Polo Club. I hadn’t seen it in forever. I’d assumed my mother had either thrown it away or tucked it into one of the zillion boxes she had in storage units all over the county.
    So how did a gift I gave Jonathan when I was ten end up in Dead Girl’s fist? Did my mother know? No. My mother wouldn’t cross the threshold of a place in this condition, let alone go ferreting through closets. Melinda would have to know. Hard to believe she’d moved out without checking the closet. I glanced at the skeleton again. Maybe not. I was no expert, but based on the way the skeleton was shoved in between the exposed framing, it almost looked like the skeleton was a recent addition. Except that she was holding Jonathan’s medallion.
    Distant sirens split through the silence of the early evening.Panic welled up inside me. I didn’t know how my long-deceased stepfather’s medallion had ended up in the hand of a corpse, but I figured it was something I wanted to keep to myself until I had answers.
    Knowing the police would be there in a matter of seconds, I freaked out wondering where to hide the thing. They were sure to go over the house with a fine-tooth comb—which surely would include my purse and tote—so I had no choice but to sneak it past them. Unfortunately, neither my adorable skirt nor my cute cami had pockets, and I’d left my suit jacket in Becky’s car. The only viable hiding place was my bra. Quickly, I stuffed the cool medal, covered no doubt with dead person cooties, into place and rushed out to join my friends.
    My first mistake was making eye contact with Becky. One look and she knew something was wrong.
    “What did you do?” she asked.
    Her question-slash-accusation drew the attention of my other two friends. Suddenly I had three pairs of eyes trained on me just as four police cars came screeching to a halt. One, I noted, parked on the lawn, leaving deep tracks in the grass.
    As fully armed officers descended upon us, I could only remain mute and hope it wasn’t called a wonder bra for nothing. And as if robbing a corpse wasn’t bad enough, an unmarked West Palm Beach car arrived a fraction of a second later. Palm Beach does have a police force, but it’s small, and I could only conclude that for serious matters such as dead people, they called for reinforcements. Unfortunately for me, out stepped Detectives Steadman and Graves.
    They hated me.
    Graves, who looked a lot like the star of the Ving Rhames cable remake of Kojak, had a body of solid muscle and the personality of a toad. His partner, Detective Steadman, was one of those women who confused being assertive with being a bitch. She was square and compact, a lot like Sponge Bob. Having a history with the two detectives didn’t bode well for any of us. Particularly Jane, who, I could see, had started to shake. Not that I could blame her. These were the same detectives who had dragged her off to jail and charged her with Paolo Martinez’s murder.
    The fact that she was exonerated probably screwed with their case closure rate, not to mention the fact that it must have caused them some personal embarrassment. At any rate, neither detective looked too happy to see us huddled together in the front yard.
    The feeling was