Fillet of Murder Read Online Free PDF

store. With any luck, if they kept their feet on it without straying over the edges, they could avoid knocking over a lamp or tripping over a table leg. “Wait a minute, I just remembered something,” Talia said. She slid open the zipper on her purse and dug out her keys. Her key ring had a mini-flashlight built into its ladybug design. She pressed the button that triggered the device, and a thin pinpoint of light flickered on.
    â€œHey, that’s cute,” Bea said.
    Talia aimed the beam at the floor, hoping to illuminate their way to the back of the shop. “It doesn’t give out much light, but it’s better than nothing.” Talia sighed. “All right, it’s now or never. But stay behind me, okay? And for heaven’s sake, be careful!”
    Talia called out Turnbull’s name again, feeling suddenly ridiculous. Regardless of their innocent intentions, she and Bea were intruding. Why didn’t they just wait until ten o’clock, when the store opened? Why skulk around like a pair of burglars? If Turnbull heard them, he’d have every right to call the police.
    Or, maybe he’d cut out the middleman. Maybe he’d come blazing out of his office with guns blasting. Did Turnbull even own a gun? He seemed like the type who would enjoy packing heat, if for no other reason than to give the appearance that he was a tough guy. Talia rubbed away the shiver that was crawling up her arms. “Bea, I’m having second thoughts.Maybe we should leave and come back later, when the store’s open. I just got this eyeball-searing vision of the two of us in orange jumpsuits, strolling around the yard at the women’s prison in Framingham.”
    Bea snickered. “Orange is definitely not my color. Still, we’re here now. Why don’t we just see if he’s back there? He’s probably not even in the store. I bet he went to Queenie’s for a latte and a jelly doughnut. Every time I go in there for the paper, he’s standing at the coffee station, chatting up that cute college girl who works behind the counter.”
    â€œEww,” Talia said.
    â€œEww, indeed. The poor girl always looks like she’s trying to make a mad escape while the fool just stands there with a stupid grin, blathering on about himself.” Bea pressed her fingers lightly to the small of Talia’s back. “Come on, let’s trot our bums back there and get this over with. If he’s not there, we’ll come back later.”
    â€œAll right,” Talia said glumly, “since it was my dopey idea in the first place.”
    Of course she hadn’t counted on having a sidekick. With a sense that she was sticking her neck straight under the blade of a guillotine, Talia held out her ladybug light and began picking her way carefully along the fancy runner. The slender beam barely illuminated a few inches of space at a time. Bea at her heels, she made her way closer to the back of the showroom, eventually spying the open doorway from which the pale light was dribbling. It had to be Turnbull’s office. Talia was ten or twelve feet from the doorway when her foot skidded on something.
    â€œWhat happened?” Bea asked her.
    â€œMy foot slipped on something. Hold on a sec.” Aimingher beam downward, Talia spotted a slip of paper sticking out from under her sneaker. She bent low and retrieved it, and saw that it wasn’t a slip of paper at all—it was a photograph. “It’s a photo,” she told Bea. “It probably fell out of someone’s purse while they were lamp shopping.” She held up her mini-light and shined it on the photo. She smiled as her light caught the face of the child in the snapshot—a little girl of about four or five with tight red curls and wearing orange plaid boots.
    â€œWhat a darling creature,” Bea said, peering at the picture over the crook of Talia’s arm.
    â€œI’ll leave this with Turnbull,