The Perfect Coed (Oak Grove Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

act.”
    “And I supposed you encouraged her to be a feminist?” Jake’s voice had an ironic twist.
    “I encouraged her to think for herself,” Susan said. “But she was sort of mixed up. There was something going on that I didn’t understand.”
    Susan paused a minute. “Her roommate is taking the class now. Brandy Perkins. She’s the one who told me she couldn’t come to class because her roommate was missing and told me who it was. Frankly, I didn’t take it very seriously.”
    After a long silence that Jake let drag on, Susan spoke again. “You think there’s a real threat to me, don’t you?”
    “Let’s say I’m not willing to take the chance of not believing it,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense, but it could be real. Yeah, I’m going to act like I believe it.”
    “Thanks,” she said. She asked the questions she would repeat over and over again in the coming days. “Why would anyone kill a coed? Especially a coed like this one? And why would they put her in my car? What does it mean about my corrupting young girls?”
    Jake shook his head. “That part’s so crazy I can’t think about it. I’m afraid there’s a bigger story here. I think once we get to unraveling it, we’re going to be like a kitten with a ball of twine, always finding another loose end.”
    “Aren’t you glad it’s not your responsibility? You’re the one who told me it’s out of your jurisdiction now.”
    “Susan, if you’re involved—and particularly if you’re in danger—it’s always my jurisdiction. And”—he leaned closer to her—“I’m in love with you, which means I want to get it over with quickly and get your car back to you and our lives back to normal.”
    Jake spent the night at her house, teasing her worries away with his magical hands, urging her to lose herself in lovemaking and forget about death. When at last she cried out in satisfaction, he covered her face with kisses and finally, still panting, asked, “Feel better?”
    “Yeah,” she admitted.
    She didn’t tell him the next morning that she was glad to have slept the night wrapped in his protective arms. Instead, grumbling when the alarm went off, she said, “If you’d gone home last night like you should have, we wouldn’t be getting up at the crack of dawn.”
    Undaunted, he leaned over her, kissed her nose, and said, “Be grateful, or I’ll attack you again.” They made love quickly, fiercely, and found themselves fighting over the shower at six-thirty in the morning.
    “I’ll have to drop you at school and go home for clean clothes,” Jake said, standing before her with a towel wrapped around his middle and water glistening on the curly hair on his chest.
    “Good. I can stand to be there early and collect my thoughts.” She was blow-drying her hair, impatient with the time it took.
    “We’ve got to figure out a car for you.”
    “Ummm,” she agreed. “You can’t spend the night all the time.”
    He snapped his fingers as though to say, “Damn,” and turned to find his clothes. Then, more seriously, he said, “I don’t want you here alone.”
    Susan shuddered. She’d almost been able to forget that someone was apparently stalking her and held a big-time grudge.
    In the end, she went home with Jake and borrowed his moped, one of the larger Honda models—an Aero, he’d told her in superior tones. He’d ridden it in high school and kept it in his garage ever since, taking it out often enough to keep it in running condition. He said he was sentimentally attached to it and couldn’t bear to sell it. Susan never told him that mopeds had seen their day and no one would buy it now.
    “I’m not sure you’re safe on this,” he protested.
    “Jake Phillips, I can ride this thing as well as you can!”
    “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “It makes you a sitting target.”
    She felt a sudden surge of bravado. “I can’t stop living my life because some nutcase puts a body in my car and writes me a