Ghost On Duty (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 2) (17 page)

“Oh, can’t you leave her alone?” Bebe cried, putting a protective arm around her friend’s shoulders.
 

“Just doing my job, Ms. Miyaki.”

“And doing it badly, aren’t you?” A man I’d never seen before stepped forward from the small crowd of neighbors who were gathering to see what was going on. Thick and strong looking, with wide shoulders and an extra share of rounded muscles beneath his clingy, jersey shirt, he was attractive without being actually handsome. He looked like a take-charge guy and that was how he was acting.
 

“I’m going to take Mrs. Madronna home now,” he said, and she turned toward him as though he was there to save her. “If you need to question her further, give her a call and make an appointment.”

I waited for the detective to start throwing his own weight around, but to my surprise, he stood back and didn’t make any effort to stop them. The two of them walked toward an old, dusty green Mustang and Detective McKnight watched them for a moment, then turned to talk to the men working on the crime scene without a comment.
 

“Who was that?” I asked Bebe.

She gave me a quick, fleeting smile. “That was Hank Pearson. He’s my foreman.”

“Oh.” That surprised me. “He works for you?”

She nodded. “So he knows Caroline and knew Kyle. He lives in that little house up the lane.” She pointed it out. “He’s a very good foreman.”

And a very good friend of Caroline’s, I would say. Hmm.

Detective McKnight was back.
 

 
“Now,” he said a bit sharply, “Let’s fill in some blanks, shall we?”

And so it went for another hour or so, until the coroner carted Kyle Madronna off to wherever it is in this town that they take the recently deceased of the victim variety and the police packed up their equipment and drove off and left us alone, staring after them and wondering what we were supposed to do now.
 

“There’s blood on the walkway,” Bebe said, and suddenly she looked as though all the air had gone out of her.
 

“No problem,” I told her, taking her hand and leading her up into the house. “I’ll take care of it for you in the morning. Let’s get something to eat. You’ll feel better with some food in your tummy.”

There it was again, something my grandmother had always said, and now it was coming out of my mouth. Inside, I groaned.

If you haven’t yet read Book 1 of this series, it’s available at Amazon
 

http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Christmas-Destiny-Cozy-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00R9Q4CM0

ABOUT AUTHOR

J.D. Winters is a pen name for Helen Conrad, an award-winning, bestselling author of more than 90 romances (over 15 million copies sold) 
published under various pseudonyms with Harlequin, Silhouette, Loveswept, and others.  She is currently revamping and rewriting much of her backlist--some available in the US for the first time--to present on Kindle. 

Helen Conrad ’s Blog