Murder on the Eightfold Path Read Online Free PDF Page B

irons?”
    “For the record, Mrs. Alexander, I’m not enjoying this.”
    A.J., hanging onto the wall for support, joined the tableau at the door. “Jake, this is ridiculous ,” she protested.
    Jake moved past the uniformed officers and Elysia stepped back haughtily, but Jake was not reaching for her. His grip on A.J.’s arms was hard but supportive. “Look, I don’t want to do this. It’s my job, all right?”
    “No, it’s not all right. You’re arresting my mother!”
    He threw a look at the waiting officers, and lowered his voice. “I know exactly who she is. I don’t have a choice here, honey.”
    Honey . Disconcertingly, it undermined her anger.
    Elysia said briskly, “No need to fuss, Anna. Call Bradley and tell him to exercise option B.” To Jake, she said disdainfully, “I’ll be out from behind bars by lunch.”
    Jake said shortly, “It’s already past lunch.”
    Elysia ignored this.
    “I’ll call him,” A.J. said. She freed herself from Jake’s hold, shuffling toward the phone in the hall as she threw back, “And you’d better not handcuff her!”
    “Ooh, kinky,” Elysia bit out.
    Jake said wearily, “Elysia Alexander, we’re arresting you on suspicion of homicide. . . .”
    A.J. watched Elysia stalk down the porch steps followed by the bemused officers. Jake hesitated in the doorway, waiting for A.J. to say something or at least acknowledge he was still there. A.J. knew it, yet couldn’t quite bring herself to soften toward him—largely because she was struggling to maintain her composure.
    Then Mr. Meagher came on the line, and when A.J. next glanced around Jake was gone and the front door was closed.
    Her heart sank, but there was no time to worry about what this disaster was doing to her relationship with Jake. She hastily filled Mr. Meagher in on the latest developments, and he grimly reassured her he was on the case.
    A.J. hung up the phone and tottered back to the bedroom, shoved her barely touched brunch tray and Aunt Diantha’s manuscript out of the way, and eased flat on the mattress once more.
    She had no doubt that Mr. Meagher would get her mother out of the slammer in short order, but then what? If Jake had gone so far as to arrest Elysia, the evidence piling up against her must be fairly damning.
    A.J. wasn’t given to panicking, but the situation seemed bleak, despite Elysia’s casual attitude. It was unbelievable to think her mother might actually go to trial—even be convicted—but unfortunately she had spent too many years married to a man who adored television crime drama not to know that these things happened in the best of families.
    Let alone in eccentric clans like her own.
    Monster came to the side of the bed and snuffled her face. “What are we going to do?” A.J. asked him.
    His recommendation seemed to be that A.J. let him have her lunch if she wasn’t going to eat it. A.J. vetoed this, and he climbed creakily on the bed, circled twice, and settled with a doggie hmmph .
    If only she wasn’t stuck flat on her back. A.J. swallowed hard as she recognized the direction her thoughts were turning. She had solemnly promised Jake not to dabble in anymore amateur sleuthing—it had nearly wrecked their relationship once. But she could hardly stand by, or even lie by, while her mother went to jail for a murder. And it was a cinch that Elysia was not going to patiently wait for Jake or anyone else to prove her innocent, in which case A.J. might be the stabilizing influence.
    Except that her own stability was a little rocky at the moment. Of all the times to injure her back! Still she could use the phone and she could use her laptop. Maybe she could do a little checking into Dicky Massri—
    She became aware that the doorbell was ringing. Monster jumped off the mattress and trotted down the hall, woofing. A.J. commenced the long and painful process of getting off the bed and on her feet. She had made it to the doorway of her bedroom when she heard a key in the