See Also Murder Read Free Page B

tears. Not now, anyway. I was still embarrassed that I had let Hilo see tears roll down my cheeks.
    The pile of manuscript pages on my desk called to me as I rolled out the pie dough, banging the table with excessive force each time I made a pass to smooth the glob of flour and water. Indexing would have to wait. There was no way I could concentrate on headhunters. No way I could face death of any kind, no matter how far away, with the news that Hilo had brought me.
    I couldn’t escape the present crisis in my own world at the moment, and I thought even Sir Nigel would have understood that—though I wasn’t sure my editor, Richard Rothstein, would.
    Deadlines for writing indexes for books were rigid, mostly unchangeable. The publishing date and manuscript due date to the printer were appointed months in advance. Writing the index was one of the last tasks in the book-publishing process, since the pagination had to be set in stone. I’d never missed a deadline—most times I was early—and that effort had provided me with a steady stream of indexing work since I had started with H.P. Howard and Sons.
    I was three-quarters of the way through Sir Nigel’s four-hundred-page book, and the index had to be in the mail to New York in two weeks.
    Normally, that would have been enough time—barely, with everything else I had to do—for me to compile the index, combine all of the letters from my index cards into a typed first draft, then do a final red-letter edit and create a publishable index. But I had agreed to help Hilo, and I didn’t know how much time that was going to take.
    All I knew was that I was going to do everything I could to help find out what had happened to Erik and Lida. Deadlines be damned—even if it meant never writing an index again.
    I spilled some flour on the floor at the thought of losing money and a publisher that I had worked hard to create a reputation with. I got the impression from my editor that once you missed a deadline, you’d never work for them again. I understood that, but I just couldn’t face the pressure at that moment.
    I needed every penny I could get to keep the farm going. Luckily, the weather over the last couple of years had been nearly perfect for growing wheat and silage, our two main crops, but Hank’s doctor bills had started to stack up, offering a new threat to any security or buffer I could hope to create.
    Shep was out doing whatever job he could find to do. The inside of the house was no place for a dog as far as Hank was concerned—with the exception of the depth of winter when Shep was welcome to warm himself in front of the fireplace. The services Shep provided to the farm were far too valuable to just leave him to fend for himself in a freezing, subzero wind.
    Hank and I differed on that point, and on occasion I would let the dog in the house, out of Hank’s line of sight, in the depth of summer or whenever I needed the company of another living, walking creature.
    Ever the border collie, Shep was industrious, always working, always figuring something out. My guess was he was out trying to herd the spring chickens. At the very least, he’d keep the hawks away and be out from under my feet. I was in no mood to be herded.
    To make matters—and my mood—worse, I’d boiled the cherries too long as I stared out the window, contemplating what to do next. I had to start over again, using my last good bunch of fresh fruit. Finally, after an hour, I managed to get two pies in the oven.
    It was getting near dinner time, and it had been a while since I had checked on Hank. Sometimes he was so quiet that I nearly forget he was in the bed, lost in darkness, unable to do anything for himself but wish for his old life back. I imagined him out in the front barn, tearing apart an alternator and putting in a new set of bushings, but he was never there. I only went into that barn when I had to now.
    Hank was staring