Pinned for Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

looks after me almost as he would his mamma.”
    “You’ve been good to him, too, Rose,” Debbie said as she crossed her feet at the ankles before digging her hand into her sewing box and extracting three spools of varying shades of pink thread. “You’ve been his biggest champion, encouraging people to give him a shot in life.”
    Rose waved off their hostess’s praise. “Too often people in this world equate everything with education. Even decency. As if being a compassionate human being is something taught in a book rather than the world at large. But regardless of his challenges in school as a young boy, Kenny has always been kind, hardworking, and honest to a—”
    “I’m sorry for the interruption, but that couldn’t be helped.” Georgina strode back into the room, her now empty hand held tightly in a fist. Reclaiming her spot beside the fireplace, the mayor closed her eyes and rested her head against the seat back.
    “Is everything okay, Georgina?” Debbie asked, voicing the inquiry mirrored on the faces of those around them.
    Slowly, the woman opened her eyes, her gaze skirting the room’s occupants before coming to rest on Rose. “There’s been a robbery.”
    “A robbery?” Margaret Louise echoed.
    Georgina nodded, her gaze still firmly rooted on Rose’s face. “Martha Jane claims she was robbed in her own home.”
    “Good heavens, is she okay?”
    “She’s fine, Dixie. But she’s fit to be tied and ready to press charges. Now .”
    “She knows who did it?” Tori asked.
    “Yes.” Georgina broke eye contact with Rose long enough to send a meaningful glance in Tori’s direction. “She does.”
    “Who?” Rose stammered, her voice cracking under the stress of the day. “Who was it?”
    “Kenny. Kenny Murdock.”

Chapter 3

    If she didn’t know any better, she’d actually think Roger had a split personality. Persona A had been relatively tame, showing a hint of manners despite a propensity to make a mess. Persona B, on the other hand, had been nothing short of tyrannical, subjecting his victims to a host of ill-tempered behavior with absolutely no regard to the plight of the elderly or anyone else.
    Standing in the center of Rose’s prized sewing room, it was no secret which personality had come knocking on the elderly woman’s front door. And like most unwelcome guests, he’d stayed entirely too long.
    “Oh, Milo, I had no idea,” Tori gasped from behind her hand as she surveyed the damage to her friend’s home. “I mean, I knew she’d suffered more damage than we did at the library, but this ? It’s . . . it’s insane.”
    The third-grade teacher, who was single-handedly restoring her faith in the opposite sex, slid his arm around her waist as he, too, took stock of their surroundings. “It’s bad, there’s no doubt about that. But it’s fixable, Tori. And what’s not fixable is replaceable from what I can see.”
    She willed herself to take a deep breath, to get her emotions under control, but it was hard. For years she’d seen televised images of damage sustained from storms, their impact dulled by the absence of a shared reality. But standing there, witnessing the fallout in person, was overwhelming if not downright disheartening.
    “I mean look at this . . .” Tori squatted down in the middle of the room, her hand sweeping across the overturned sewing machine and wooden sewing box that had always reminded her so much of her great-grandmother’s things. “Rose loved this room. She told me she could sit in here for hours sewing away the time.”
    “And she will again. I promise.” Milo Wentworth swooped down beside her, turning her face toward his with a gentle hand. “We’ll get that tree all the way down, replace the broken windows, and put everything back where it belongs.”
    She encased his hand with her own, the man’s calming presence something she’d come to realize she not only needed but craved as well. Peering up, she studied the amber flecks