Death Threads Read Free Page B

like that. I’ll just take care of that real quick.”
    Tori stopped him with her hand. “It’s not a problem. Really.”
    “If you’re sure . . .” His voice trailed off as he closed his eyes momentarily only to reopen them with rapid speed. “Man, I don’t know what to do. If I keep quiet I’m perpetuating a lie. But if I don’t—”
    Cutting himself off midsentence, Colby Calhoun simply hiked the strap of his computer case higher onto his shoulder and made a beeline for the front door, five sets of eyes following his hasty retreat, the lust of earlier replaced by worry and concern for their friend’s husband.
    “Colby, wait.” Margaret Louise took a few steps toward the door then stopped. “If you don’t . . . what?”
    Slowly he turned around, eyes wide, his voice suddenly calm.
    “If I don’t, I’m dead.”

Chapter 2

    If she hadn’t been waiting and listening, she probably wouldn’t have given the faint thud outside her window a passing thought. She’d have merely chalked it up to the evening paper skittering across the front stoop or an unexpected meeting between one of the resident chipmunks and the new porch furniture she’d added just that afternoon.
    But she’d been waiting and listening. For two days.
    Turning her sewing machine off, Tori slid out of the white lattice-back chair in the tiny alcove off her living room and tiptoed over to the front door. The last of the sun’s rays played across the wooden floor as dust particles danced in the light, reminding her of the housework she’d neglected while waiting for the woman on the other side of the door. A woman who prided herself on her southern manners yet failed to show up for a prearranged meeting or to offer any sort of explanation for her absence.
    Though, really, Tori knew the explanation without hearing the words.
    Leona Elkin loathed the idea of learning to sew.
    Rose knew it. Margaret Louise knew it. Debbie knew it. The whole sewing circle knew it. Yet she, Tori Sinclair, had thought she could defy the odds and change the woman’s mind.
    Grasping the knob as quietly as she could, Tori turned her wrist to the right and pulled the door open. “Ah ha!”
    Leona Elkin straightened up, her hand quickly retrieving a white square box from the small circular wicker table that stood off to the side of the door. “Oh, Victoria, dear, you scared me half to death.”
    “You’re late.”
    “I uh—” Leona sputtered as a pinkish hue graced her moisturized cheeks.
    “By two days.”
    “Oh. That.”
    “Yes, that. Must I remind you of your bet with Margaret Louise?” Tori placed her hands on her hips and tapped her foot against the wood floor. “Jake and Melissa have seven children, Leona. Seven .”
    The woman daintily cleared her throat then shoved the box in Tori’s direction. “I brought chocolate.”
    Tori stared at the box, her mouth beginning to water. “Did you say chocolate?”
    “I did . . .”
    Damn.
    I will be strong. . . . I will be strong. . . .
    “If you don’t learn to sew, Leona, I’m going to have to tell your sister. You do realize that, don’t you?”
    “Truffles to be exact, dear.”
    She gulped.
    “The freshest batch in Debbie’s bakery,” Leona continued with an angelic tilt of her perfectly groomed head. “Though, I must say, I didn’t catch Debbie in her usual sunny mood. Perhaps something is amiss in the water at the Calhoun home.”
    Fresh truffles.
    Double damn.
    “Okay, okay. You’re forgiven. Unless”—she glanced toward the little table where Leona had been standing when she flung open the door, reality dawning in an instant—“you were going to leave these out here and take off without knocking.”
    Leona glanced down at the ground, shifted from foot to foot.
    “You were, weren’t you?” Tori looked from her friend to the box and back again, disgust in fierce battle with desire.
    “Truffles, dear.”
    Damn.
    “Okay, okay. Come in.” Stepping to the side, Tori motioned her