1 In For A Penny Read Free

he’d spent his life looking out for me, as if he were my big brother.
    Britt seemed fated to turn up at my most embarrassing moments. Wishing wouldn’t make him go away. I’d tried that last time and it hadn’t helped one bit.
    Two uniformed officers scrambled down the hill to inspect the body, but Britt stayed with us. His thunderstorm gray eyes narrowed with suspicion. All of a sudden I felt like I was eleven years old again and guilty of coloring happy faces on the Sunday School walls with Jonette.
    “This is not our fault, Britt.” My face flushed with sudden heat. “We were playing through and found Dudley like this.”
    “It’s okay, Cleo,” Britt said, his voice softening. “No one is accusing you of anything. You and Jonette wait in a squad car while we secure the scene. I want statements from both of you.”
    Jonette turned white. “I need to move our golf cart. We’re in the way of anyone else who’d want to play through.”
    “Don’t worry about that,” Britt said as he shepherded us towards the nearest squad car. “I’ve closed the course for the day. No other golfers will be coming through.”
    I had no doubt that the hand he had on each of our backs could just as easily snatch us up by our collars if we didn’t do as he said. The dark suit he wore did little to hide the thick muscles of Britt’s beefy frame.
    I shivered. Sitting in a warm car, which had been driven right across the golf course in clear violation of every course rule, seemed like a wonderful idea to me. “Don’t you need to separate us like they do on TV cop shows? How do you know that we won’t be rehearsing our stories?”
    “This isn’t TV,” Britt said harshly, then his tone softened. “I thought you’d be more comfortable in each other’s company. Do I need to separate you two?”
    “No,” Jonette said. “Shut up, Clee. You’re going to get us in trouble.”
    Britt opened the car door for us. “Give me a few minutes at the crime scene, then I’ll be back to question you.”
    Jonette slid in next to me in the backseat. “Are you trying to get us arrested? We’re not involved in this. We’re innocent bystanders, remember? This is all Dudley’s fault. Trust him to screw me over in death too.”
    It was hard to put Dudley’s death out of my mind. His ghostly image and that dark, crowning bloodstain had been permanently imprinted on my retinas.
    Dudley, what happened to you?
    Dudley and Bitsy had double-dated with Charlie and me in high school. They’d married while Dudley studied banking in college. It hadn’t been long before he’d produced two boys to match our two girls. Sons that would now grow up without a father.
    Charlie and Dudley. I had a zillion memories of the two of them together, laughing at the world. I shivered as another thought occurred to me. Were Dudley’s extramarital affairs the reason behind Charlie’s affair and subsequent marriage to Denise?
    If it was, my ex was a damn fool. Charlie should have remembered how Dudley crumbled when Bitsy moved out and took his boys over to her mom’s in Virginia. But then, Charlie had never been one to think long and hard with his brain.
    Charlie’s affair pushed me the closest I’d ever come to domestic violence. That damning credit card statement had exploded into my world, sending me into a screaming fit Hogan’s Glen had never seen the like of. My Lexy had saved me from a career of making license plates. She’d called the cops before I killed her father.
    I couldn’t stop shivering. No wonder. Britt left the door open. “Close the door, Jonette. I’m freezing.”
    Jonette pulled the door closed. After a moment, she squeezed her balled fists against her crossed legs and gazed expectantly out the window. “I’ve got to pee. I hope this won’t take long.”
    “Hell.” Jonette had a thimble-sized bladder. If she had to pee, she had about five minutes until she’d pee anyway.
    Thanks to Jonette, I knew the location of every