A Dreadful Meow-ment (MEOW FOR MURDER Book 2), стр. 35
Great. Just when I was about to get to the good part.
Tilly and I fly within an inch of the mirror to inspect the salon’s handiwork and gasp in unison.
Sure enough, each and every one of our lashes is pointing straight to the ceiling as if that were their job.
“Holy smokes!” Tilly says with a wide-eyed surprise that I suppose is inevitable at this point. “We’re hot stuff!”
“You said it, sister.”
“So now where?” I ask, angling to get a better look at the lash miracle that seems to have taken place. “I say we go somewhere to show off our new eyelash do’s.”
“Every last chemically treated hair on my head agrees. Get ready to be catcalled until the rest of your hairs stand on end. I’m taking you to a construction site.”
Chapter 14
The temperature outside seems to be rising as Tilly and I hop back into Wanda. But I’m not having her take us back to Starry Falls. Instead, we do a little internet wizardry and end up at Kadie Beaumont’s house, happy to discover it’s a construction zone indeed.
Men in hard hats walk to and fro carrying beams of wood and hammers and other paraphernalia that has Tilly hyperventilating at the sight of them all.
There’s a man out front speaking to someone in a hard hat, and I can’t tell if either of them is Oliver Kincaid from this vantage point.
The neighborhood is a suburban oasis. Nothing but neatly manicured emerald lawns, white picket fences, and houses that look twice as large as they need to be. There’s a minivan parked in just about every driveway on the street and a few women are out pushing strollers with dogs waddling by their sides.
“This is where I thought I’d end up in life,” I bemoan the fact as if I were truly grieving it.
“Here?” Tilly gives a quick look around with new eyes as if we had suddenly transported to Mars. “Eh. You can still end up here if you want. Shep makes the big bucks. It would be a commute to the manor for you, but once you start spitting out mini Sheps from your belly, you’ll want to stay home to herd them.”
“Herd them?”
“Sure. That’s what you do with kids.” She wrinkles her nose. “Heck, you’ll have enough money, I’m sure you can talk Shep into installing an electric fence to keep the critters in.”
A dull laugh bucks through me. “You make suburban life sound like so much fun. Will you still hang out with me when I’m no longer cool?”
“Ah, honey, you’re not that cool now,” she says in her sweetest voice. “But don’t you worry. Once I’m through with you, you’ll be so cool you’ll be white-hot on fire.”
“It’s good to know I can always count on you to keep me humble.”
I glance back as the men part ways.
“I’d better get out there. Wait here, Tilly.”
“Are you crazy? Have you seen the beefcake roaming the vicinity? You do what you gotta do, and I’ll do what I gotta do.” She unbuttons her blouse a few notches and shoots out of the door like a greased cannonball.
Never mind Tilly. Killer or no killer, that girl can take care of herself.
The house itself looks like mid-century, a single story that is growing too big for its britches with a skeleton attachment growing out of its side, and I’m presuming behind as well.
The front door sits wide open as the man who was standing there a few moments ago emerges with keys in hand and shuts it.
“Excuse me?” I call out.
He looks my way and offers an affable smile. He’s tall, has a thick head of dirty blond hair, half-moons for eyes when he smiles, and elongated dimples on either side of his mouth.
“Can I help you?”
“Oh, I was actually looking for Kadie—or Oliver.” Either one will do.
“You just missed Oliver. He’s gone for the day. But Kadie is picking up the girls. She should be back soon.”
“She sure loves those girls,” I say it like I mean it.
“We both do.” He frowns as he steps off the porch. “They’re the glue that keeps this family together.”
The glue? That sounded as harsh as it did loving.
He lets out a hard sigh. “You probably know about the separation. It wasn’t a secret. But things are back to where they should be between us.” He frowns as if maybe they weren’t.
“I’m sorry,” I say, genuinely shocked to hear the news. “I mean, I’m really glad the two of you were able to iron things out.”
“I am, too.”
An awkward silence fills the space between us.
“Well”—I give a quick glance over my shoulder in the event Kadie is back in the vicinity—“I was just coming by to tell her about the funeral this Friday. My fiancé went to school with her. I was in town and he thought it would be nice if I told her in person. Same with Oliver.”
He sucks a quick breath through his teeth. “I heard about the tragedy. Poor guy.”
“Did you know Craig Walker?”
“Not really.” He ticks his head to the side and holds it there a second. “He came around here a few times, mostly to check up on the progress. He hung out with Oliver and James out back.”
“James Palmer? The deputy?” The very same deputy who all but told me an hour ago that Craig was chastising someone who was coming around this very construction site for having an affair with a married woman? Could it have been James that Craig was trying to dissuade from carrying on the affair?
“Yeah, he and his partner went to school with Kadie. I travel for work and they keep an eye out on things when I’m gone. It makes me feel better knowing they’re around.”
“It would me, too.” Unless one of them was sleeping with my spouse.
He glances back. “Why don’t you stick around? She’ll be back in about ten minutes. The house is unlocked. We’ve got a construction