Pinned for Murder Read Online Free PDF

that softened the darkness of his eyes. “But how, Milo? You work all day long at the school. Then, when the students are gone, you’ve got papers to correct and parent calls to field. And I’m tied up all day at the library. How on earth are we going to get this place in shape anytime soon?”
    A slow smile stretched his mouth upward, the motion etching dimples in his cheeks. “I don’t work all day, Tori.”
    Reaching up, she tousled the longish thatch of burnished brown hair that graced the center of his head. “You’re a sweetheart to even think about coming over here after working with kids all day long . . . but I can’t ask you to do that.”
    “You’re not. I’m offering.” Motioning around the room, Milo’s eyes narrowed. “Trust me, I couldn’t sleep any better than you could knowing that Rose is picking around one trip hazard after the other. It’s not safe. For anyone, much less Rose.”
    Rose.
    It was hard to look around, to see the shattered windowpanes and the overturned knickknacks that seemed to dominate the retired kindergarten teacher’s home. But it had been even harder to see the utter disbelief on the woman’s face when she heard the news about her former pupil.
    Lowering her voice to a near whisper, Tori jerked her head in the direction of the closed door halfway down the hall. “You should have seen her face when Georgina said Kenny was being questioned for stealing. She was devastated and angry all at the same time.”
    “Rose adores Kenny. Has for as long as I can remember.” Milo straightened up, his six foot one frame making its way across the tiny room to right a lamp that had tipped onto its side. “Celia used to say I’d be the same way one day when my own students are grown and out on their own.”
    She cast a sidelong glance in his direction, the mention of his late wife’s name bringing a catch to her heart. Milo had been a widower for ten years, and Tori had never met his wife, a woman he’d been married to for all of about six months before cancer claimed her life. Time had marched on since then, of course, healing hurts and spotlighting new perspectives. But still, she couldn’t help but hesitate when Celia’s name was mentioned.
    “Are—are you okay?” she asked, her shoulders bracing for some sort of revelation even she couldn’t identify.
    “Of course.” Pulling her in for a hug, he rested his chin on the top of her head, the rumble of his words spreading outward from their point of impact. “We’ve talked about this, Tori. Things happen for a reason whether we understand that at the time or not.”
    He was right. When she’d found Jeff in the closet of their engagement hall with his pants down around his ankles, she’d been devastated, his inappropriate shenanigans with a coworker rocking her to the core and propelling her to run as far from Chicago as possible. At the time, she’d thought her life was over. Yet now, in hindsight, she realized Jeff’s betrayal was the catalyst for something better.
    Much, much better.
    Shaking her thoughts from a path that had absolutely nothing to do with Rose, Tori forced herself to focus on the true topic of their conversation. “All the way here in the car, Rose kept saying the same things over and over again . . . ‘Kenny wouldn’t steal,’ ‘Kenny is a good boy,’ ‘Money holds no meaning for Kenny.’”
    “And she believes that from the bottom of her heart.” Milo took Tori’s hand and led her from the sewing room, their feet padding softly past Rose’s bedroom door. When they reached the tiny living room on the front side of the house, he stopped, his voice rising to a near-normal decibel. “I just hope she’s right.”
    She heard herself gasp only to stifle it as quickly as it came. “Does that mean you think he stole Martha Jane’s money?”
    He shrugged. “Not necessarily. In all fairness, I don’t know Kenny all that well. He tends to keep to himself. Even on the days he bags groceries