The Bad Always Die Twice Read Online Free PDF Page A

this.”
    Nikki glanced in the direction of the bedroom. The door was open and she could see plenty of cops inside, but she couldn’t see the bed from this angle. “Has anyone called Edith?”
    “I don’t know. I know I sure as hell didn’t. How’d you like to be the one to make that phone call?”
    Nikki would have laughed had the circumstances been different. Rex March had not been a good husband to his wife of twenty-some years and everyone knew it, including Edith. He’d been a liar and a cheat. Over the last few years, he’d made a fool of his wife in the pages of gossip magazines more times than Nikki could count. So Edith hadn’t exactly been the heartbroken widow when he’d been declared dead. The first time.
    And now Edith was about to be notified, if she hadn’t already been, of her husband’s second demise. Just thinking about it made Nikki dizzy. Or at least made her wish she had a large glass of Syrah. Maybe a whole bottle.
    “That’s it?” Nikki studied Jessica’s pale face. “There’s a dead man in your bed and that’s all you know?”
    “That’s all I know.” Jessica opened both hands. “And now you know as much as I do.”
    “Miss Martin?” A guy in a rumpled brown suit stuck his head out of the bedroom door. Dirty hair. Five o’clock shadow. Had to be a detective. He was a perfect example of how stereotypes were perpetuated in the media. “Miss Martin, can I speak with you for a moment?”
    Jessica snatched Nikki’s hand and Nikki felt the damp tissue against her palm. Jessica tugged. “You have to come with me. I can’t go in there alone again,” she whispered. “Not with him .”
    Nikki didn’t know if she was referring to Rex or the guy in the brown suit, but she allowed herself to be led into the bedroom.
    Seeing Nikki, the guy pointed. “She can’t—”
    “This is my best friend, Nikki Harper. The Nikki Harper, daughter of Victoria Bordeaux.” Jessica clutched Nikki’s hand with both of hers. “I don’t have to tell you what an influential woman her mother is or how big a stink she’ll throw if her daughter isn’t treated by the LAPD with utmost respect.”
    “Detective Lutz.” He didn’t offer to shake Nikki’s hand, which was okay with her. He was wearing a latex glove that could possibly have touched Rex’s body.
    “This is a crime scene, Miss Martin,” he said, looking back at Jessica. His cadence was weird. Almost mechanical. “She can’t come in here. I don’t care who she is.”
    “But he can?”
    He looked at her with obvious impatience. “Who?”
    “Him.” Jessica pushed past the detective, into her bedroom, dragging Nikki along with her. “Him!” She let go of one hand to point in the direction of her bed, set diagonally in the west corner, out of direct line with the door. Good feng shui.
    “At least I invited her,” Jessica said in a shaky voice. “I didn’t invite him.”
    Several cops in the room turned to look at Jessica, but Nikki barely noticed them. Her gaze started at the tip of Jessica’s manicured nail, and followed an invisible beam across the bedroom to the bed. She tried to stop herself. She’d already seen one dead man. Enough for a lifetime. But she couldn’t look away.
    Nikki didn’t know what she expected. Hell, she hadn’t expected to see Rex March at all, no matter what everyone was telling her.
    But there he was. His pale, bloated body in the middle of the bed, tangled in sky blue silk sheets. He had not been an attractive man when he’d been alive. Dead, he was worse. Stark naked, except for the embarrassingly tiny gold lamé bikini briefs he wore, he looked like something that had washed up on the beach. His protruding, hairy stomach seemed overly tight, like the skin of a drum. And his bald pate was sunburned. That was the last thing Nikki noticed before she looked away.
    Her stomach did a flip-flop with the granola bar she and the boys had shared in the car ride to Mother’s. “Oh, Jessica,” she