Pillow Stalk (A Mad for Mod Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

I’ll give you a lift somewhere.” He shielded his eyes with the straw hat and scanned the parking lot. “Nasty! Take it from here. I’ll be back.”
    “You? Don’t you have to stay here?” asked Officer Nast.
    “You’ve got it under control,” he said, exchanging a heated gaze with her. He put a hand on my elbow and steered me toward the Jeep. I shook off his touch. Rocky bounded ahead of me, expanding his leash, eager to get into the car. At least one of us would enjoy the ride.
    “Where to, Ms. Night?”
    I weighed my options. Without my keys, I couldn’t get into my studio or the storage unit. I couldn’t call Steve Johnson, because his number was in the pocket of my robe. That left one place. I scooped up Rocky and took a step backward, looking away from the emergency vehicles and cop cars. I shivered, even though the hot Dallas sun was already threatening to turn the air into a thick veil of humidity. I needed to get out of there, to get away from the image of this morning. “Give me a ride to the Mummy.”
    “Where’s that?” he asked once we were buckled inside.
    “The Mummy Theater at the end of Lakewood Drive?” He didn’t react. “Used to be the Casa Linda? Sat vacant for years?”
    He kept up his blank stare.
    “It’s across the street from the topless bar, Jumbo’s Playhouse?”
    “Oh, that place. Didn’t realize they’d reopened.”
    The sound of the wind whooshing around our exposed heads replaced conversation until he pulled into the theater’s lot. “You work here?” he asked.
    “Sort of,” I answered. It dawned on me that he wasn’t just making conversation but trying to casually find out about me. Some things he’d discover pretty easily with a Google search. Others not. I decided to save him some time.
    “I own a mid-century modern decorating business called Mad for Mod.” I slid a business card out of a small silver cigarette case that I’d scored at one of my buying excursions and handed it to him. “I volunteer here. I spend my mornings swimming laps at Crestwood just like today. I live on Gaston Avenue, and if you do some digging, you’ll discover that I own the building, though my tenants don’t know that and I’d kind of like to leave it that way.”
    He held my card out in front of him. “Madison Night. Mad for mod. Cute.” He reached two fingers into the ashtray and slid out a card of his own. “In case you want to talk.”
    “About what?” I asked.
    “About anything.”
    “I told Officer Nast everything I know.”
    “I don’t want to get the info from Nasty. I want to get it from you.”
    That was the third time he’d called her that, and although it offended my feminist sensibilities, I chose not to comment.
    “If you have no other questions for me, I’m going to go.” I fought the door for a couple of seconds, which put a damper on my take control attitude. Rocky put his paws on the door and stood on his hind legs looking outside and when I finally got the door opened, his little body stretched for a wild second until I cupped his belly and scooped him close to my chest.
    “Goodbye, Lieutenant,” I said, shutting the door behind me.
    “It’s Lieutenant Tex to you,” he said back with a smile. “And Ms. Night? I’ll be in touch. You can count on that.”
    He let the engine idle while I found the spare keys in the mailbox out front and unlocked the doors. I scooped up the junk mail and promotional flyers someone had fed under the door. The rest of the team, paid employees and volunteers, liked coming at night to take care of business, but with my morning habits and flexible schedule, I preferred to handle small projects during the day.
    Rocky led me down the hallway to the makeshift manager’s office behind the concession stand. I clicked on the overhead light and turned on the computer. The room was a box of stale air, like it always was when I first walked in. Trace scents of stale popcorn and soda lingered from last Saturday night’s