The Semi-Sweet Hereafter Read Online Free PDF Page A

have an important job.”
    I hoped that job wouldn’t include arresting me.
    â€œI could give you a few cooking lessons sometime.” I’d already told Satya Mishra what I did for a living. “Free of charge.”
    â€œBribing an officer is a crime, Ms. Mundy Moore.”
    â€œOr you could pay me.” I was floundering. We both knew it.
    To my relief, DC Mishra did not choose that moment to incarcerate me. Instead, she wrote something in her notebook, gave me another evaluative look, then stood in the guesthouse’s kitchen. She frowned at me. “Don’t leave town, Ms. Mundy Moore.”
    I gulped and tried to look guilt free.
    Don’t leave town. Wasn’t that what the police said to their prime suspects? Was I a prime suspect? All I’d done was stay in a place where I had plenty of opportunity, report finding a dead body, identify the until-then-unknown murder weapon, and loudly proclaim my innocence. Maybe more than once. I wasn’t sure.
    Hmm. If that last bit didn’t implicate me, nothing would.
    â€œWe may need to speak to you again, after we’ve finished processing the crime scene.” DC Mishra eyed her colleagues in what seemed to be her typical no-nonsense way. Then, me. “You should find somewhere else to stay tonight. Possibly for the next forty-eight hours. It all depends on what we find here.”
    â€œI hope you find a murderer!” I said urgently. I was under suspicion of murder. Officially under suspicion. Oh no.
    â€œWe’ll find who did this.” The detective constable pierced me with a deadeye look. “You can be assured of that.” Then she conferred with her fellow officers, nodded, and left the scene. If I was supposed to feel comforted, I didn’t. While it was somewhat reassuring to know that the police were on the job, they were pointed squarely in the wrong direction.
    They were pointed at me. I wanted to escape, but I wasn’t sure where to go. I wanted to forget about this, but that was impossible. I wanted to break down the situation with someone who wasn’t mentally fitting me for handcuffs and prison stripes.
    Muzzy-headed, I stepped outside into the encroaching darkness. In the garden, I could still make out the faraway sounds of laughing pubgoers and summertime traffic on the embankment.
    I pulled out my phone and dialed. It would be afternoon in L.A., where Danny lived and worked. I pictured sunshine and smog, traffic and tacos. He picked up on the first ring.
    â€œThe margaritas here are horrible,” I told him in my best upbeat voice. “Can you FedEx me some tequila right away?”
    Danny wasn’t fooled by my fake bonhomie. He’s known me too long for that. His voice took on a hard edge. “What’s wrong?”
    My throat burned. I gulped some air and blinked hard. I was afraid I might start crying. I like to think I’m pretty tough—pretty live-and-let-live about things— but at the familiar, cherished sound of Danny’s voice, everything rushed at me.
    â€œIt happened again,” I croaked, unable to say more.
    A moment of silence stretched along the line. I imagined Danny at work, wearing a tuxedo and a skeleton-style, two-way radio earpiece on a red carpet somewhere in La-La Land. He made (most of) his living as a private security expert, ushering Hollywood types to movie premieres and fancy charity events.
    â€œI’m on the next red-eye,” he told me. “Sit tight.”
    That’s when I started weeping, of course. All the stress of the past few hours blubbered out of me in fits and starts. I stared at London’s skyline, hoping to regain my composure. I could glimpse the very tippy top of the Shard, lighted for the nighttime, but that celebrated view didn’t help. I was a wreck.
    â€œThe police think I did it,” I confided, calmer now.
    Danny never left my (telephonic) side, not even while handing off whatever protection