Words With Fiends Read Online Free PDF Page A

closing time on my own.”
    â€œDon’t worry, Darla, I’ll try not to wear him out tonight,” Martha interjected, though the bawdy wink that punctuated that remark was meant strictly for James.
    What Darla could only describe as a dumbfounded look flashed across his face before the former professor sternly countered, “I assure you, I am well able to withstand the rigors of dinner and conversation. Now, shall we be on our way?”
    Darla managed to keep a straight face until the store door had closed behind the pair with a jangle of bells. Then she burst into giggles loud enough to rouse Hamlet from the nap he’d just resumed.
    â€œSorry, Hammy,” she told him, doing her best to stifle her humor. “I’m just not used to thinking of anyone wearing out”—she gave the last two words finger quotes—“James. You know what I mean?”
    The feline obviously did, for he shot her a cold green look that bore an uncanny resemblance to her manager’s stern glare. She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Okay, sorry. No more jokes at James’s expense. Satisfied?”
    Apparently, he was. He settled back to sleep, reminding Darla that she still needed to make that phone call to the veterinarian. She’d do that first, during business hours. And then, as soon as she’d closed the store for the night, she was going to pay a casual visit to Jake and—the heck with confidentiality—find out what was up with Jake’s latest client.
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    â€œLOOK WHAT I FOUND, A PINT OF VANILLA ICE CREAM,” DARLA DECLARED a couple of hours later as she slipped through Jake’s front door. She shrugged out of the knee-length, bright yellow parka that she’d tossed on—Texas born and bred that she was, she wasn’t enjoying the cold New York weather one bit, even if it was but a thirty-second walk to Jake’s place—and proffered the bag that held said frozen confection. “Know anyone with a spare pumpkin pie?”
    Jake straightened in her oversized leather chair, the same sort of office chair that some fictional Golden-era detective might have used. Closing her laptop, she shoved back from the 1950s chrome dinette table that served as her work desk and gestured Darla inside the apartment.
    â€œSorry, I’ve been putting in a little OT,” she said, indicating the pile of documents and photos that surrounded her computer. “I guess it’s time to call it a day.”
    Rising from the chair, she yawned and shrugged the kinks out of her shoulders. Today, the ex-cop wore a robin’s-egg blue turtleneck over black jeans, while her mop of curly black hair was pulled back into a fashionably messy bun through which she’d shoved a No. 2 yellow pencil. Darla had noticed too late that her own green sweater, combined with her yellow coat, made her look like something out of a John Deere catalog—but on the bright side, she’d likely be spared a comment from Jake in that vein, since she suspected that her New Jersey-born friend had never seen one of the iconic green-and-yellow-painted tractors.
    Not that Jake’s look wasn’t worthy of a little tweak, Darla thought with an inner grin. Between the bun and the reading glasses, and surrounded as she was by paperwork, Jake resembled nothing so much as a middle-aged schoolteacher. The resemblance, however, was superficial. Darla knew that should the PI whip off the glasses, let down the bun, and toss on her familiar black leather duster, Jake was capable of a kick-butt Diana-Prince-to-Wonder-Woman transformation.
    Eyeing Darla’s bag with interest, Jake added with a tired smile, “Pumpkin pie, eh? You’re either psychic, or you’ve been talking to Robert.”
    â€œThe latter. Feel like indulging?”
    â€œI’m considering it. I haven’t eaten dinner yet. You?”
    Darla shook her head and reached into the sack, pulling out a