Nun But The Brave (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

call as he walked away.
    Giulia closed the door and stood in the entrance way, getting a feel for the place. The standard beige carpet sank into deserved obscurity beneath the hydrangea-patterned sofa and chair in the living room. Those walls were periwinkle and matched the flowers in the upholstery.
    She walked down the candy apple red hallway. The left-hand door opened into a bathroom with kiwi walls and matching shower curtain. In the last room, three creamsicle walls offset the single vanilla wall in the entire apartment.
    Giulia would’ve killed for a creamsicle right then. Instead, she opened the window’s matching striped curtains and started in on the nightstand drawer.
    Two romance novels, a composition notebook, and a mechanical pencil. Giulia flipped through the notebook: Sketches for fancy cake decorations. She set it on the bed to take with her. You never know.
    Next, the closet. Five pairs of khakis and five polo shirts, the latter with a Sunset Shores logo on the single pocket. Two pairs of sensible sneakers with arch support and a few ghosts of food stains on them. On the far left, a black wool winter coat, black fur-lined boots, and a beige raincoat. On the shelf above, sweaters in white and tan and gray.
    The dresser yielded much of the same. Gray t-shirts with “Crazy Cat Lady,” “Bakers Make It Rise,” and “Bambi: He’s What’s For Dinner.” If Joanne wasn’t dead, she’d either bought specific clothes for her new life or she’d joined a nudist colony.
    Onto the bathroom. Toiletries. Makeup. Interesting that she’d left makeup behind. Giulia hadn’t worn it during her ten years in the convent, naturally, but now she seldom left the house without putting on a face.
    The kitchen gave Giulia an inferiority complex. The best quality pots, pans, and utensils. Cookbooks several pay grades above her own skills, and Giulia was an accomplished cook.
    Fridge, freezer, and pantry, all empty. Cleaning supplies under the sink. Shoved behind them into the back corner, one cat dish for “Wilton” and one for “Springsteen.”
    So the cats died? Both at once, conveniently in time for Joanne to disappear? Giulia wasn’t buying it. She opened the memo feature on her phone and made a note to check the local SPCA online archives. Joanne’s cats were distinctive enough to make a search a notch above hopeless.
    She opened the living room curtains on a bare balcony. Next, she turned on the TV looking for the channels Joanne had marked as favorites, but only the four broadcast stations came in. Duh. The cable would’ve been shut off with no one here to pay for it. So much for that line of inquiry.
    To the bookshelf. Every Adam Sandler DVD on the top shelf plus all the parody horror movie franchises. Below them, a boatload of romances in all the modern genres: paranormal, erotica, fantasy, historical, suspense, contemporary. Between them, framed photographs of the twins at high school graduation, on their twenty-first birthday, Joanne in camouflage holding the antlers of an eight-point buck, Joanne at Diane’s college graduation and vice-versa. On the bottom shelf, Stephen King hardcovers and the complete works of Jane Austen.
    Giulia finally found Joanne’s personal papers inside the ottoman. One of those square plastic document boxes was stuffed with hanging folders docketing Joanne’s recent life: bills, tax returns, receipts, a few extra photos.
    “Come to Giulia, you beautiful organized life story.” She worked the box out of its tight inner space.
    Twelve “meows” sounded from the cat clock on the dining nook wall. Giulia didn’t look down on Joanne for her choice of kitsch, since Giulia’s favorite Christmas clock played snippets of different carols every hour.
    Hotel check-in time at last. Also time to eat. Little Zlatan apparently wanted a turkey club.

Eight

      
    When Giulia opened the door of her room at the Comfort Inn, her first thought was: “I need a bigger desk.” Her second: