If Cooks Could Kill Read Online Free PDF Page A

Tiffany setting of white gold, gave her goosebumps each time she looked at it, and then everything but Paavo and love flew right out of her head. Maybe she was being silly, but so what? This was a life-altering, karma-enhancing, family-churning event, and besides, she’d never been engaged before.
    She kept pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. And looking at her ring. And hugging herself. And looking at her ring. She’d gotten two manicures in two days, trying to find the perfect accompaniment for Siberian blue. A natural French manicure was winning at the moment, since it didn’t distract from the ring in the slightest. And her pale green Nina Ricci suit enhanced both.
    God, but she loved being in love. She picked up her cell phone to call Paavo—just to say “hi” and to wish him a happy lunchtime, admiring the way her ring sparkled as she hit the phone’s buttons.
    The ring was especially precious because she knew he’d bought it with money he’d been saving for a new car. His Austin Healey was beyond ancient. If it was in good shape, it might be a collector’s item. But the bailing wire and glue that held it together had destroyed any value beyond scrap metal.
    Paavo wasn’t at his desk, and Inspector Bo Benson answered the phone. Benson told her Paavo and his partner were called to a job in Japantown at Bush and Scott Streets, and it wasn’t a homicide.
    That gave her an idea. A brilliant idea, in fact. Gleefully, she made another phone call, and then, after rubbing a smudge off the dashboard, got out of the car. She was a little woman, with big brown eyes, and short brown hair with eye-catching red highlights, thanks to her favorite Fairmont Hotel beauty salon. Now, as she hurried up the quaint block lined with specialty shops and delis to Everyone’s Fancy to hear all about Connie’s blind date—holding her hand out in front of her to catch the sparkles of sunlight on it as she went—a quick halt stopped her from barreling smack into the closed front door. She tried the latch handle, but it was locked.
    Why was the store shut down at this time of day?
    She knocked and peered through the lace curtain behind the glass door. Nothing moved inside. MaybeConnie was in the back room, sick or something. She’d talked to Connie yesterday, and she’d sounded upbeat and healthy. Why wasn’t she at work?
    Angie backed up and examined the store. Under a brick red awning, the window display hadn’t been changed for at least three months. Boredom was hardly the way to entice neighbors into a shop they passed by every day. Connie needed to use a display with pizzazz, one that shrieked, “Buy me!” to window-shoppers. The linens, lace, doilies, and glass bottles gathering dust didn’t even whimper.
    Angie purposefully hadn’t telephoned this morning, even though she was dying to find out all about the date, because they’d agreed to meet at one P.M . Had Connie forgotten and gone to lunch without her? Or…
    What if something had happened to Connie on her date? What if she’d been in an accident?
    It couldn’t possibly be that she’d been so enthralled with that jock, that Dennis Pagozzi, or whatever his name was, that she’d gone home with him and decided not to come to work today, could it? A long night of wild, passionate, raw sex? No way.
    That wasn’t Connie’s style. Or, to be more precise, it wasn’t her kind of luck.
    â€œAngie!” Helen Melinger, a broad-shouldered, well-muscled woman who owned the shoe repair shop next door, lumbered onto the sidewalk. “I saw you standing out here. Where the hell’s Connie?”
    â€œYou don’t know, either?” Angie asked. “Hasn’t she been here at all today?”
    â€œNo.” Helen folded her thick, muscular arms and scrunched her bulldog face. “I’m ready to piss my pants I’m so goddamned