Murder Has a Sweet Tooth Read Free Page B

last thing either one of us needed to do was to let our imaginations run wild. When they did, more often than not these days, they ran toward murder.
    I shook away the thought. “Alex is fine. Alex is always fine. Haven’t you said so yourself? Alex is everybody’s friend. He doesn’t have an enemy in the world. Nobody would ever—”
    “There might have been an accident.” Thinking about the possibility, Jim’s brows dipped low over his eyes. “Or he might have gotten mugged. He could be lyin’ in an alley somewhere. He’s got only his driver’s license and that shows his address back home, and the police wouldn’t know he’s stayin’ here with me, and—”
    One hand on his arm, I stopped Jim the way he had stopped me from panicking so many times. “There’s no use worrying. Not if we don’t know there’s anything to worry about. My money’s on a woman.”
    “Aye.” Jim nodded. I’m not sure if he was agreeing with me or trying to talk himself into believing I was right. “A woman. It must be. It is Alex, after all!” He smiled in the way I’d seen him smile so many times when he talked about his cousin. Back when Jim still lived in Scotland, he and Alex had a number of wild adventures they’d told me about, and more, I was sure, they hadn’t dared to mention. Jim knew his cousin better than anyone, and he knew that Alex would come dragging home soon and work twice as hard the rest of the day to make up for the time he’d lost.
    He pulled in a breath and, seeing some of the tension go out of his shoulders, I relaxed. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m going back to Bellywasher’s. We’ve got crab cakes as a dinner special tonight and that means the place will be full. And when I get home tonight—”
    “Alex will be here singing and painting. Or will he be wallpapering?”
    “Ye think I’m that easy to dupe?” Jim laughed. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and together we headed down the steps. “What Alex is doing—”
    Before he had a chance to tell me, his cell phone rang. He plucked it out of his pocket. “Maybe we’ll find out what Alex is doing. Maybe this is him.”
    He flipped open the phone and I knew he was right about the call being from Alex because in an instant, the worry was erased from Jim’s face. He smiled and gave me the thumbs-up. “I’ve been worried about ye, man. I was sure something was wrong. But Annie was right. Annie’s often right, in case ye haven’t noticed. She said—” He stopped for a moment and listened. “What’s that?”
    It wasn’t so much what he said as the tone of his voice that sent a shiver through me. I held my breath and waited to hear more.
    “We’ll come. Of course we’ll come,” Jim said. “Right now.”
    He flipped his phone closed, but in spite of his promise to Alex, he didn’t move a muscle. In fact, he stood as still as if he’d been encased in the same ice water that washed through my veins.
    Automatically, I reached for Jim’s hand “What is it? What’s wrong?”
    He swallowed hard. “It’s Alex,” he said. His voice was hollow, his face was suddenly ashen. “He’s at the Arlington police station. He’s . . .” Jim drew in a long breath and when he let it out, it wobbled over the emotion he could barely control. “Alex has been arrested in connection with a murder.”

Two

    I WAS NEVER SO HAPPY TO SEE ANYONE AS I WAS to run into Tyler Cooper the moment we were inside the doors of the Arlington Police Department headquarters. Even though Tyler was dating Eve again, he wasn’t exactly what I’d call a friend. He was, however, a contact—an official police contact. That was exactly what we needed if we were going to find out what was going on.
    I closed in on him before he had a chance to duck and run. “What’s going on?” I demanded. “Tyler, what happened?”
    He looked from me to Jim, and apparently Tyler decided that Jim was his better bet. Little did he know that Jim loved Alex like a