Grab & Go (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

tapped. I wasn’t the only one waiting for the possible ransom call for my missing husband.
    I quickly punched through the menu and held my breath as a recorded male voice I didn’t recognize came on.
    “Uh, Nora? This is Josh. Um, I heard — well, word got around. Your mom, I guess, through a couple people my wife knows. You’ll know what I’m talking about. Uh, except my wife’s left me. I’m staying with my sister — she’s the only family member who’s willing to talk to me at this point.” He gave a slight chuckle, and my heart sank for him. It was the sound of a man trying to make light of a situation that was cutting him to pieces. “Which means I’m closer to you now, up north, if you’d like to get together—” His voice dwindled into a long pause. “Quietly, you know,” he finally whispered, and the call ended.
    I knew exactly who he was, not that I’d ever met him. Josh Freeney was another of Skip’s casualties — the FBI agent he’d somehow persuaded to pass along pertinent information. Josh had lost his job and, from the sound of things, much, much more. I’d left him a message a few weeks ago, hoping for the long shot that he’d be willing to talk to me.
    My phone jumped to the next message — a wealth of riches today. And a weak, female voice I also didn’t recognize.
    “This is Susanna White. I have something of yours. Well, of your husband’s, I guess. I can’t — there are just things in my life right now, and I can’t — I just can’t anymore. It’s urgent, obviously. I’m heading to Canada, and I need to — well, I need to stop by on my way. Call me.”
    I listened to the message again. And again. I didn’t know anyone named Susanna White. But it sure sounded as though she knew Skip. I scowled at my phone and punched the replay button again.
    A crack of light shot across the windshield as the kitchen door opened. A stout form stood there, backlit, with her hands on her hips. My ten minutes were up. I slid out of the car.
    Clarice’s face switched from her usual slightly irritated pucker to slack disbelief when she saw me. “Oh, Nora.” She pulled me into the warm kitchen and scanned me up and down, her eyes wide behind her cat’s eye glasses. “Oh, Nora,” she repeated and dropped into a rickety ladder-back chair, visibly deflated. “I had no idea it was like this—” she waved a hand toward my bloody clothes. “Walt didn’t say—”
    I squeezed her shoulder. “Hank’s surgery went well.”
    “You need to clean up.” She jumped out of the chair and jabbed a commanding forefinger at me, her bluster back in full force. “Strip.”
    I grinned. “Not in the kitchen. Let’s unload the car.”
    Twenty minutes later, I was standing under a steaming hot trickle of water in a cast iron tub in a bathroom that sported a 1950s-era Pepto-Bismol pink and floral vibe.
    Clarice was on the other side of the shower curtain, perched on the closed toilet seat and peppering me with questions. My little chat over coffee with Des had just been a warm-up session compared to the grilling she gave me.
    “What do you think?” I called through steam swirls when I’d finally put a dent in her curiosity. Back when I was engaged to Skip and ran his charitable foundation for a living — it felt like a lifetime ago, but it’d only been a few weeks since my botched honeymoon — Clarice was my executive assistant. She’s stuck with me through every catastrophe. I value her opinion, no matter how bluntly stated, more than all others. Maybe particularly because she doesn’t believe in personal artifice, at least not when it comes to expressing her thoughts. Although her more natural appearance is a recent phenomenon.
    “I’m sweltering,” she hollered back. “You’ll have more wrinkles than a prune’s behind if you don’t hurry up.”
    Yeah, that voice of experience I appreciate so much. I stuck my head around the curtain. “My phone’s in my purse. Could you listen to