Snipped in the Bud Read Online Free PDF Page A

heading toward me with two men on his heels. “Five feet, two inches, freckles, red hair…In fact, you remind me of Abby Knight—but you can’t be Abby because I told her not an hour ago to leave the school.”
    “Flower delivery,” I managed. “It couldn’t be helped.” I hitched a thumb toward the open doorway. “One of the professors was stabbed in the neck. He’s inside.”
    At that moment, the student staggered out clutching his stomach. Reilly was on him in a second. “Are you hurt, son?”
    To which the student gasped, “Sick.”
    Reilly helped him to a chair, then he and his men and the paramedics went into Puffer’s office, where I could hear him giving out brisk orders. I sank down onto the tile floor and did some shallow breathing until I felt better. When I looked up again, Reilly was back.
    He crouched in front of me. “Are you okay?”
    “Not so good, actually.”
    “Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. There you go. Now tell me what happened.”
    “I walked into Professor Puffer’s office and he was sitting in his chair, except that when I went closer, I saw that it was Professor Reed instead, which surprised me because Reed’s office is next door. That’s when I noticed the pencil sticking out of his neck…. Reilly, I saw him alive not twenty minutes ago.”
    “Back up. You found Professor Reed in Professor Puffer’s office? Isn’t Puffer the guy you nearly clocked in front of the school earlier?”
    I rubbed my temples, which were starting to ache. “And your point is?”
    Reilly shook his head. “Never mind. So you came up here to make your flower delivery and found the body?”
    “Not exactly. I delivered the flower, then left, then came back to get it. You’ll find the package on the floor in Professor Puffer’s office. I dropped it when I saw the, um, corpse.”
    “You delivered the flower, then came back for it?”
    Reliving that embarrassing scene wasn’t something I felt up to doing, especially when Reilly seemed amused by it, so I said crossly, “Is that really important right now?”
    “Okay. We’ll save that for later. Did you disturb anything?”
    “Other than dropping the flower, no. It’s wrapped in cellophane, so there’s no mess for your guys to clean up.”
    “Our lucky day.” Reilly rose to his full height and stood looking down at me, shaking his head. “I don’t know what it is about you, but it seems like every time we find a dead body, you’re somewhere nearby.”
    “Tell me about it. When our mail carrier is late I break out in a sweat. I won’t open the walk-in cooler until I know he’s safe.”
    Reilly rolled his eyes as he held out his arm to help me up and lead me to Bea’s desk. “Sit here and rest. You can fill me in on all the fascinating details when I come back.”
    “At least you can’t say it’s my driving this time,” I said as he turned to give further instructions to the cop standing nearby.
    I sagged into Bea’s desk chair, but I was too rattled to sit for long. It was still sinking in that Carson Reed was dead, and that he’d been terminated in Puffer’s office with one of those infamous black pencils, pointing an obvious finger of guilt directly at the Dragon.
    I tried to imagine the circumstances that led up to Reed’s murder—Reed stepping into Puffer’s office, the two men arguing, then Puffer attacking him in a fit of rage. But what would explain Reed being in Puffer’s chair? If Puffer had killed him, he certainly wouldn’t have propped him in his own chair after he’d done the deed.
    Another scenario had Reed taking a seat at Puffer’s desk, then Puffer returning to find Reed using his phone, and going berserk. But that seemed a pretty extreme reaction even for a nasty-tempered dragon.
    My third scenario involved an unknown person or persons attacking Reed from behind, believing the victim was Puffer. A case of mistaken identity.
    The fourth scenario was still in the works when my stomach growled