The Longest Yard Sale Read Online Free PDF Page B

“I’m sorry. It’s the best I can do right now.”
    CJ studied my face. “Okay, then.”
    CJ wheeled around, knocked his leg on the corner of the trunk I used for a coffee table, cursed, and left. He didn’t slam the door, but he pounded down the steps out to the porch. On the sidewalk, he looked up at me for a moment before striding down the sidewalk toward Great Road. Something about the way he said “Okay, then” had sounded so final. I tried to convince myself that my stomach hurt because of all I’d eaten at DiNapoli’s and not because of what had just happened with CJ.
    Last April, after a wacko almost killed me, CJ and I had spent the night together. I’d felt so safe after the scariest day of my life. But in the morning, CJ launched into logistics. Should he give up his apartment and move in with me? Or should I move in with him? Better yet, let’s find a new place for a fresh start. I’d said no. The look on his face as he’d said good-bye that morning would never leave me.
    I curled my legs up in the chair and tilted my head back against the solid oak. My phone rang. It was Seth, a temptation I had no energy to deal with now. I ignored it, skipped my planned bath, and flopped on my bed fully dressed.

CHAPTER 4
    Someone pounded on my door. My bedroom door. I leaped up, still dressed in my clothes from last night. Only two people had the key to my apartment, Stella and Carol. I flung my bedroom door open. Carol stood there with her hand raised to knock again. Her face was about the same color as the blank canvas at her store, only stained with tears and mascara—a Jackson Pollock painting come to life.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” I asked. I glanced at my alarm clock, which read seven AM . I’d slept through the night.
    â€œCome with me. Please.” Carol turned and ran through my apartment, stopping only briefly at the top of the steps to make sure I was following her. I don’t think she’d have noticed if I was buck naked. She, on the other hand, had changed from what she wore yesterday into black leggings and a red sweater.
    I hurried to catch up with her on the town common. “What’s going on?”
    â€œIt’s awful,” she said.
    â€œWhat?” I asked. Carol shook her head. A shiver went through me. I hoped she and Brad were okay. We stopped at the front door of her shop. She pulled out her keys. Her hands shook worse than mine had the night Stella tricked me into singing karaoke with her at Gillganins. I took them from her and unlocked the door. I flipped on the lights as we went in, scanning the place.
    â€œIs this about your painting?” I asked. Nothing looked any different than it had last night.
    Carol shook her head “no” as I trotted after her through the shop to her studio. She stopped so abruptly I almost plowed through her.
    It took me a minute to process what I saw. A man on his back sprawled across the floor wearing jeans and a blue dress shirt with French cuffs and gold cuff links. Around his face was a frame, a dark, heavy frame.
    â€œOh, my god,” I said, looking away. The man was dead. Really, really dead. “Who is that?”
    â€œI was hoping you’d know,” Carol said.
    I steeled myself and took another look at the guy. His sandy-colored hair appeared recently trimmed. He wore a gold wedding band. His long, denim-covered legs were askew. He didn’t seem to have any wounds other than some bruising on his neck. His square-jawed face was mottled.
    â€œI have no idea who he is,” I said. I had no idea why Carol would think I did. “He looks like he’s been framed. Picasso’s blue period.”
    Carol’s eyes widened in shock at my wisecrack. I chided myself for how heartless I sounded. But I’d spent a lot of time around military cops during my marriage to CJ. They had the same dark sense of humor civilian cops did.
    â€œHave