Mind Over Murder Read Online Free PDF

didn’t mean what she thought she meant. “Just how are we going to do that?”
    The dreaded words echoed in her ear like the sound of doom.
    “You can do it, Clara. You have to use the Quinn Sense and find out who killed Ana Jordan.”

3
    “You’ve got to be kidding!” Clara struggled to keep her tone calm. “Stephanie, I don’t have any control over the Quinn Sense. It comes and goes, and I never know when it’s going to pop up, and even when it does, most of the time I have no idea what it’s trying to tell me. It’s never there when I need it, and it’s totally, utterly unreliable.”
    She must have sounded more adamant than she’d intended, as there was a long pause on the other end of the line. Finally, Stephanie’s voice mumbled in her ear. “I know you hate it, and I’ll never understand why, but we have to do something to help Molly, and you’re the only one—”
    “Molly will be fine. If she’s innocent, then Dan will know it, and she’ll be home any time now. He’s just trying to find out as much as he can.”
    “Then why did he have her brought to the station? Why didn’t he just question her at the bookstore when he was there?”
    Clara hesitated. “Maybe he thought she’d tell him more if she felt intimidated.”
    “Like what?” Stephanie paused, then added, “You think she did it, don’t you?”
    Closing her eyes, Clara remembered Molly’s fierce voice. If you won’t do anything, then I will. “No, of course not—”
    “Well, I know she didn’t, and I’ll find some way to help her. I have to go now. I’ll see you at the store tomorrow.”
    Clara winced as the line went dead. Her cousin’s accusing voice still rung in her ears. Sighing, she replaced the receiver. It wasn’t as if she didn’t want to help Molly, but Stephanie was expecting too much if she thought the Quinn Sense was going to solve the case.
    For one thing, she’d spent too many years trying to shut the annoying voices down forever. It must have worked. The one time she’d desperately needed the Sense it had let her down. She suspected that the Quinn family’s unusual talents were like muscles. The less you used them, the less effective they were.
    She was about to return to her e-mails when she heard the front door snap shut. A couple of minutes later, her mother flung open the bedroom door without knocking, her eyes wide and disbelieving. “Is it true?”
    Clara bit back the hasty words forming in her mind. Her mother still treated her like a schoolkid, and one of these days, she’d have a conversation about respecting privacy. Right now, though, there was a more important issue to talk about. “Yes,” she said quietly. “It’s true. Someone killed Ana Jordan in the stockroom of Stephanie’s bookstore.”
    Her mother’s gasp of horror seemed to echo around the room. “That poor child! How did she take it?” She rushed into the room and flung herself down on the bed. “She must be absolutely devastated!”
    “She’s kind of shook up, yes.” Clara regarded her mother with an air of resignation. Jessica Quinn had always looked and dressed younger than her years. Now that she’d had her short hair colored and added false eyelashes, she could easily pass for a woman in her early forties instead of fifty-five.
    If she didn’t know better, Clara might have suspected that her mother was looking to replace her dead husband. In spite of the glamorous image, though, Clara knew Jessie was still grieving. They both were, and her mother’s new look was simply a defense against the pain that still lingered after more than two years.
    “By the way,” she said, with just a hint of reproach, “I was a little upset, too, since I was the one who found her.”
    “Oh, yes, I did hear that.” Jessie looked repentant. “How are you doing?”
    “I’m okay.” Clara looked at her watch. “You’re home early.”
    “I left early.” Jessie got up from the bed and smoothed her skirt over her slim hips.