Deadly Décor (A Caprice De Luca Mystery) Read Free

an astronaut would wear on the moon. For six weeks while his broken ankle had begun healing, she’d used temporary help. But Juan managed most of the crews for her, supervised furniture arrangement from her floor plans, and was generally her go-to guy.
    Now, however, she glared at him. That look made him slow his progress down the stairs. After all, he was also in physical therapy for that ankle.
    “I’m okay,” he assured her in response to the glare. Before she could scold him, he continued, “We’re ready to move furniture from the second floor to the storage unit. I’m meeting the movers out front.” Caprice was about to remind him to be careful again, but he was out the front door and into the July heat before she could. He could move faster on that boot than most people could without one.
    Not slowing down herself, Eliza passed by her and Bella and returned to the living room. Caprice knew Bob would shortly be moving his tarps and gear to another room—another glaringly purple room that was soon to be muted to cream.
    “I feel like I’m in the middle of a cyclone,” Bella muttered.
    “You’re in the middle of a house makeover. I guess you’ve never been on site while I’m working before.”
    “I guess not. Did Roz tell you I’m going to help get her store up and running?”
    Caprice had helped keep her friend, Roz Winslow, from being charged in her husband’s murder back in May. Afterward, wanting to change her life and needing a purpose, Roz had decided to open a fashion boutique in Kismet.
    “Is Mom going to babysit Megan and Timmy?”
    “Yes, she is. And when she can’t, Nellie can. Roz said it will take a few months to get the store up and running, so most of my help will be behind the scenes. But she feels with my degree in fashion, I was the logical choice.”
    “You have told Joe about this, right?”
    “Yes. And he growled something about not wanting favors from your friends. I got really mad and told him I married him instead of pursuing a career in fashion, so I’m well qualified to help Roz. He kept quiet after that.”
    Bella and Joe seemed to be digging their marriage into a deeper and deeper hole. If they didn’t get help soon, there wouldn’t be anything left to salvage.
    The huge front door of the mansion burst open. Juan and two burly men bustled in. In their tank tops and jeans, and with their bulging muscles, they looked totally out of place in the marble-floored foyer with its two-story ceiling reaching into the second-floor gallery at the front of the house.
    “I’d better go,” Bella said, as Juan directed the men up the stairs. “I feel like I’m in the way.”
    Caprice wasn’t going to admit that Bella was in the way. She would never do that. Family was everything to the De Lucas, even when they disagreed, even when they squabbled, even when they saw each other taking the wrong road.
    “I don’t know what to do to help you, Bella, but you can come to me anytime. You know that.”
    Bella gave Caprice an odd look, as if maybe she didn’t know that, as if maybe Caprice’s opinion mattered more than Caprice had ever imagined.
    She gave Bella a hug and held on tight, the way sisters should. When she leaned away, she saw tears in her sister’s eyes. Bella didn’t cry easily, and Caprice suspected pregnancy hormones were at work.
    “Are you and Joe coming to dinner at Mom’s on Sunday?” No one missed dinner at their parents’, not unless blood and a sudden accident were involved.
    “Joe doesn’t want to come.”
    “Then you and the kids come.”
    “He’s never missed a dinner with Mom and Dad, not since before we were married,” Bella said sadly.
    “Try to convince him to come, Bella. Try to put everything aside for one day at least. Give yourself a break.”
    “I don’t want everybody to gang up on him.”
    “We won’t. I promise. Tell him that. Do you want me to talk to him?”
    “Oh, no. I think he’s still embarrassed about blowing up at you at