Murder in the Cake: Cozy Murder Mystery (Harley Hill Mysteries Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

debt—that even if he did try, he would never have found us. I used to pretend that he was looking for me when I was little, but…” She stopped stirring the drink and dropped those big sad eyes on me. “He never came.”
    I reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “It’s okay.” I scoffed a bit more muffin, enjoying the sensation of berries popping all sharp and tangy and soaking into the sugary dough.  
    What I didn’t like was yet another phone pic being snapped, this time with flash. I was starting to get a tad annoyed. “So, why did you set out looking for him?”
    “Mum died. Heart attack. She smoked and drank, so it wasn’t a big surprise, but I realised I was alone. She didn’t get on with any of her family and I had no idea about his. I thought I’d try to find him, so I asked around our town and someone told me that he’d come to London and was last known to live here. So, here I am.”
    I nodded. So much of her story resonated with me. “I totally—” Just then a young guy in skinny jeans so tight that they looked sprayed on came over and thrust a napkin under my nose.
    “Hey, could I get your autograph? It’s not for me, it’s for my girlfriend.” He waved the napkin in the direction of a blonde girl sitting at a table at the far end of the room who was giggling behind a menu. “Well? Only we have to go now.”
    “Gosh, sorry, I’d hate to hold you up. Do you have a pen?”
    He frowned. “Er… no. Don’t you?”  
    “Er, no. Sorry.”
    I looked around the café, vaguely embarrassed. People were watching the exchange. I caught the eye of the woman sitting at the next table. She smiled and gave me a little nod. The guy in the skinny jeans slunk back to his table, where he and his girlfriend proceeded to have a whispered argument.
    “Guess they must have seen the interview too,” said Chloe.
    I felt deeply embarrassed. I wasn’t a celebrity, I was just an ordinary girl. I didn’t like this kind of attention, especially not with cake crumbs in my hair and mocha down my front. I paid the bill, left a nice tip for the cute Russki, and fled as fast as my little booted feet could carry me, dragging poor Chloe behind me.

Chapter Five

    Full of cake, we waddled back home, taking time to do a bit of window-shopping on the way. Chloe was beginning to relax the more we hung out, which was great. When you’re living on the streets, you have to keep your guard up, put a hard face to the world. There are some really scary people out there, and you have to get tough or get gone.  
    What was nice was that underneath it all Chloe was a sweet teenage girl, into shoes and cake and cute pooches being walked on designer halters, those that did walk.  
    Lots of the pampered little darlings we saw on our way home were being carried in Chanel doggy carriers by immaculately coiffured ladies wearing killer heels and enough diamonds to sink a battleship.
    “How the other half live, eh?” Chloe said as a woman in a white fur coat breezed past us to go into a jewellery shop with her tiny little Chihuahua in its tiny little carrier.
    “How the other one percent live, I think you mean. The other forty-nine percent that ain’t us can’t afford rocks like that. Did you see that ice?”
    Chloe closed her eyes and staggered around a little. “I don’t know. Her rings blinded me.”  
    We laughed and, arm in arm, sauntered back to the house.
    It was great to be home. It had turned a little cold out, and Michael, bless him, had lit a roaring fire in the living room, the heat from which wrapped the house in a big old bear hug. It even reached the first-floor office, where I was doing some work with Max lying across my feet and Monty trying to sit on the keyboard of the laptop.
    Chloe was mooching around the office, checking out the photographs of Cordi and me on the shelves. Cordi had only recently put them up, ‘to make the place feel like it’s ours and not just mine’ she’d said, reinforcing