Linda Crowder - Jake and Emma 01 - Too Cute to Kill Read Free

police.” 
    The deputy nodded.  “You’d better come take a look then.  Tell us if you know who she is.”  Emma put her coat on and reluctantly followed the deputy.  Jake stepped between her and the fence.  “Is this really necessary?  I told you we don’t know who she is.”
    “Yes sir.  It’s just a formality but we need your wife to see if the victim is anyone she knows.”  Jake looked down at Emma with a question in his eyes.  She smiled up at him and squeezed his hand.  “It’s ok,” she whispered.  He stepped aside and Emma walked up to the fence.
    She looked down into the face of a stranger, feeling a wave of relief that this poor soul was no one she knew.  She’d never seen a body outside of a funeral home and she was shocked at how white the dead woman’s face was.  Even her lips were gray. 
    She was lying on her side, bent as though she’d been sitting up against the fence and had fallen over.  Emma couldn’t see any sign of violence, no obvious injuries to tell her how the woman had died.
    She wasn’t dressed for the storm, thought Emma.  The woman was wearing a wine colored sweater with charcoal gray slacks and practical but professional shoes.  Why would she wander into a storm without even wearing a coat?
    Emma stepped back into Jake’s waiting arms.  She felt shaken, more so than she had expected.  The deputy stood watching her with a mixture of sympathy and professional detachment. 
    She shook her head in answer to his question.  She didn’t know the woman, but she didn’t think she would ever forget her face.  Jake helped her back into the house, made sure she would be all right and went back outside.
    Emma got herself into the bedroom, pulled off her shoes and climbed into the bed.  She pulled the blankets up around her and shook from the impact of what she’d seen. 
    Sparky jumped up beside her and offered what kitty comfort she could.  Peachy sat by her feet at the end of the bed.  Emma tried to get the woman’s face out of her mind but it haunted her.  Who was this woman and how did she come to be alone and wandering in a Wyoming snowstorm?
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    3
     
     
    There wasn’t much time to think about the mystery woman on Monday.  Emma had slept fitfully and awakened before dawn.  Sitting up in bed, she watched Jake sleeping beside her and her thoughts returned to the previous afternoon.
    He’d found her in the bedroom when the deputies and Coroner’s men left.  She’d been curled up in the center of the bed, a cat snuggled on each side of her.  He didn’t point out that it was only 3:30 in the afternoon.
    “How did she die?” Emma asked as Jake removed a cat to make room beside her.
    “They don’t know.  Or at least they didn’t tell me if they do know.”  He draped his arm over her side.  “She smelled like alcohol though.  Wouldn’t take long to freeze to death if she’d been drinking.”
    “But how did she end up in our front yard?  Why didn’t she come up to the house?”
    “I don’t know,” responded Jake.  He was silent for a long while.  Emma thought he’d fallen asleep when he spoke again.  “Maybe her car broke down or got stuck in a drift during the storm.  Maybe she was headed here but she just couldn’t keep going in the cold.”
    “She wasn’t dressed for walking around in a blizzard,” Emma noted.  “She wasn’t wearing boots or a hat.  She didn’t even have a coat on.”
    “It was warm yesterday morning.  You know as well as I do that not everybody keeps an emergency set of winter clothes in the car.  They should.  You never know when the weather’s going to change.  People are warm in their cars.  They never think about what they’ll do if they break down.”
    Emma nodded silently.  She had been guilty many times of dressing for the warmth of car, house and office.  Jake had put an extra coat, hat and gloves in her trunk along with an emergency