Suspicious Minds (Squeaky Clean Series, Book 2) Read Free Page B

me.
    "Help! I've been stolen!" The little, white-haired woman stormed down the stairs of my Victorian apartment building. I had ten seconds before she rounded the last flight of stairs and spotted me.
    I started to turn around and walk back out the door. Just go to the van and drive away. I had enough to handle without any drama from Mrs. Mystery, my upstairs neighbor and eccentric novelist extraordinaire. I leaned against the door, hand still on the knob. It wasn't too late to flee.
    I just hoped Mrs. Mystery wasn't testing out her latest book plot on me. I drew in a breath just as I heard Riley's door opening upstairs.
    "What's wrong, Mrs. Morgan?"
    The frail woman was halfway down the last stairs. I'd missed my chance. She reached the bottom of the stairs. Her boney, age-spotted hands shook, and her white curls flew like they'd been charged with electricity. The wrinkles on her face vibrated as she clutched my hands. "Gabby, I've been stolen. What should I do?"
    "Someone broke into your apartment?"
    Her head swung back and forth vehemently, the wattles under her neck flapping until I thought I felt a slight breeze. "No, no. Stolen. Don't you see? I've ... been ... stolen" Her voice rose with each word.
    Riley's feet pounded on the creaky stairs. He joined us and gave me a questioning look behind the mystery writer's back. "What's going on?"
    "Mrs. Morgan has been stolen" I tried to keep any skepticism out of my voice. I pulled my fingers from her grasp and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Why don't we go upstairs and talk about this?"
    "No time to talk. Someone's spending all my money. They're ruining my reputation! What can I do?"
    I grabbed her elbow, saggy skin over bones on her frail body. Gently, but firmly, I urged her back up one flight to my apartment. "Let me make some tea. We'll get this all figured out"
    "Oh, it's terrible. Terrible, I tell you. Why would someone do this to me?"

    I didn't let go of her until we reached my door. Then I led her inside and sat her on the couch. Riley closed the door and sat across from her while I went into the kitchen to put some water on.
    I shuddered as I crossed the vinyl floor to the oven, remembering the dead body and blood of the man who had been killed here. I hadn't killed him, of course, though I'd been the police's number-one suspect. The man had been my number-one suspect in a murder at a crime scene I'd cleaned. I'd found some evidence that pointed to him as the guilty party, and I'd tried-in vain-to convince the police that they were following the wrong leads.
    The man's death had put a kink in my investigation, to state it lightly.
    The events had unfolded a few months ago, but my first amateur investigation still remained fresh in my mind. The good news was that the case had a happy ending. The bad news was that I'd have to live with the image of a dead man in my kitchen for the rest of my life. When it happened in your home or to someone you knew, everything changed. It didn't matter that you dealt with death every day.
    I heard Riley trying to calm down Mrs. Mystery in the other room. I turned the burner on and grabbed some miscellaneous mugs. One advertised a dry-cleaning service. Another was from a mini-marathon I had run last month. The final one, I purchased myself. It read: Princess. That one would be mine. Or if I felt especially devious, I'd let Riley drink from it.
    I wasn't much of a housekeeper or a hostess. But I did the best with what I had. I pulled out a TV tray, put some sugar in a cereal bowl, blew the dust out of a gravy pitcher, and poured in some lowfat milk. It wasn't Martha Stewart, but then I'd never done any hard time, either, so things had a way of evening out.
    I added some tea bags and spoons, poured the boiling water, and joined my neighbors just in time to hear Mrs. Mystery saying, "Next, they'll want my body. You'll see me, but it won't really be me, Margaret Morgan. It will be somebody else in my skin, living out my life"
    She had