Poisoned Pin: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

is it?” Jill asked.
    “It’s Derek, Harvey’s nephew,” Will replied.
    “Oh,” Jill said. “That’s awful.” Then she spotted Harvey, sitting on the lower brick steps, knees pulled up to his chest. “Harvey?” she called. He lifted his head a little and she walked over to him. “Are you okay?”
    “Are she and Harvey friends?” I said. Though the selfish, Stuck-in-Seventh-Grade-Crush-Land part of me kind of wanted to ask whether she and Will were friends, I really needed to know whether Harvey had anyone else to look out for him—at least temporarily—now that Derek was … gone.
    “They’re friendly neighbors. Jill and her husband, Gary, try to keep an eye on him. Or at least they did before Derek moved in.”
    Yes! Someone else was checking in on Harvey, at least. And there was a husband for Jill. I doubted Will was the type to get too friendly with a married woman. And if he was, then good riddance.
    “So Derek actually moved in? When was that?” I tried to sound casual. You know, like I wasn’t trying to interfere completely in the life of a crazy old man I’d just met.
    “Just a couple months ago. The house wasn’t really Derek’s, but he was its guardian on Harvey’s behalf.”
    I noticed Will used the past-tense when talking about Derek, just as I did. He hadn’t been officially pronounced dead yet, but we both knew it was true. So, the house was still Harvey’s. At least he’d have that.
    The paramedics loaded Derek up, and Will and I stood side by side, watching the ambulance pull away.
    “Shouldn’t you follow the ambulance or something?” I said.
    Will frowned at me. “That’s not common procedure when there’s no crime involved.”
    “But—”
    “Brenna. Please tell me you’re not buying into all that junk Harvey was ranting about.”
    “Of course not! I don’t think some lady who died a hundred years ago came back to do him in. But still, I just … I have a feeling, that’s all.”
    “A feeling?”
    “I was right last time, wasn’t I?” Okay, so I was sort of on the wrong track with the murder the week before last. But my suspicions had eventually led me to the real murderer. And my gut feeling about the victim had been right on. My trusty creep-o-meter, which I’d feared for a while was broken, had proven accurate after all.
    My faithful inner alarm system had saved me from the heartache after heartache women like my sister had suffered. It had only failed me once, when it came to Jake, my former coach, and Blythe’s former husband. I’d thought he was The One, and I’d fallen into his arms after my latest Olympic failure. That was before he started dating Blythe. She never knew he’d dropped me like a hot potato the very next day. She still didn’t know our relationship had taken such an uncharacteristic turn, that we’d ever been romantically involved. I’d really been worried about my creep-o-meter, especially when Will Riggins showed an interest in me and didn’t set it off. I mean, since when does anyone who’s not a creep show an interest in Brenna Battle?  
    “So, you don’t even want to find out what happened to him?” I said.
    Riggins gave me a wounded look. A look that made my cheeks burn. With what? Embarrassment? Guilt? Absolute twitterpation? For a moment there, I thought I’d do just about anything to get him to stop looking at me like that. To smile at me again.
    “If there’s a crime to be dealt with, Brenna, I’ll take care of it.”
    I do know how to do my job , his tone said. But Will Riggins was too polite to give voice to it. Which is why he really belonged with someone like Blythe. Why he really should not have kissed me on that bench in the park overlook, with the sparkling waters of Bonney Bay in the background. If he hadn’t realized that before, I’d just made sure he did now.
    “Oh,” I said lamely. “Okay.”
    What the heck was that? Brenna Battle couldn’t even come up with a smart, pride-saving comeback? Nope.