Murder Unleashed Read Online Free PDF Page B

thought.
    Prince whimpered again and hid his head in her armpit. Could his sensitive nose pick up his owner’s alcohol? Poor little fellow. Helen wondered if the drunken Tammie had ever hurt Prince.
    “It’s OK,” she said, and scratched his ears.
    Helen walked around the umbrella table and saw three more drinks lined up next to the first glass. All were empty. Tammie’s head had fallen forward on her massive chest. Sure enough, she was naked. Helen was grateful that Tammie’s long blond hair covered her bare chest.
    One look at that slumped figure, and Helen knew it would take gallons of strong black coffee to revive the hostess before Prince’s party. Well, it wasn’t her problem. She just had to deliver the dog.
    “Tammie,” Helen said, and shook her. She needed Tammie’s signature on the delivery form. The alcohol odor nearly knocked Helen flat. Prince’s owner was dead drunk.
    Then Tammie’s blond head lolled to one side.
    Helen saw the ten-inch ice-tempered stainless-steel scissors sticking out of Tammie’s chest.

CHAPTER 4
    H elen dropped the dog. She didn’t mean to. But those grooming scissors were driven into her mind as well as Tammie’s naked chest. The dead woman looked more than ever like an artist’s model. Now she was Still Life with Death. Her voluptuous body was a delicate gray-green. A dark trail of blood ran down her unnatural breasts. Tammie was frighteningly beautiful.
    Helen literally lost her grip at the sight, and Prince went into a free fall.
    She caught the Yorkie like a fumbled football before he hit the pool deck. Helen held him contritely to her chest and tried to soothe him. “Prince, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said.
    Prince made a small mewing sound, more like a cat than a dog. Then he raised his head and gave a single high-pitched howl. It was a cry of mourning. His loss hung in the air like a dark veil. Helen had no idea the pampered little animal could feel primal grief.
    Helen’s own senses seemed supersharp. Everything was extra bright. She saw the sun glinting off the grooming shears in Tammie’s chest, heard the frantic buzzing flies, felt a slight breeze bring the first noxious death smells.
    She saw Tammie’s long, strong hands hanging over the sides of the chaise. She was a muscular woman who could have fought death. But there were no cuts on her palms or arms. Tammie had not tried to defend herself. Death came as a surprise. She’d been stabbed by someone she did not fear and almost certainly knew. Who was it? Her husband? A friend? A lover?
    Tammie’s killer had plunged the scissors through the skin and muscle just above her breasts with a single thrust. That was pure rage.
    Helen was gripped with a less noble emotion than Prince. She felt raw panic. She had to get out of this death house. Tammie’s killer could still be inside.
    She had to get away for another reason: She could not be involved in a murder. She could not have the police asking awkward questions. If they looked into her past, they’d find out she had attacked a naked woman in St. Louis. Helen could see Sandy now, fleeing from Helen’s wrath, searching for her cell phone in her pile of clothes. Helen had had a good reason for going after her, and Sandy had never filed charges. But she had called the police, and they had made a report. The detectives investigating Tammie’s homicide might believe that this time Helen had killed a woman. They’d see the motive for the attack was the same: sex.
    Jeff had seen Tammie coming on to her at the store. Helen had complained that Tammie was drunk and naked. The cops would find out she was a swinger soon enough. Unwanted advances could be a powerful motive for murder.
    And the weapon? It was a natural for Helen, too. She could have taken the grooming scissors from the Pampered Pet, where she worked. Where Jonathon worked. The star groomer used ten-inch scissors.
    If I’m not the killer, then I’m working with one—or for one, she