Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

up for it with youthful enthusiasm. And he was willing to commit to kissing before the date. Just because I’d be both the younger and older woman to relatives was no reason to pass up a great opportunity to replace Kel in my head.

“If you’re sure—”

“Truly fine!” He looked seriously delighted. It was a strange sensation, knowing I’d caused it. Then Tommy and Drum appeared in the doorway and indulged in some high fives and back slapping when they were told about my positive response to their experiment. It was very flattering. Maybe I ought to almost get killed more often.

“Can we pick you up around ten thirty? Don’t want to get there too early. Just soon enough to get a table. It’s, like, a happening place.”

“Ten-thirty’s not too early for you, is it?” Drum asked in serious contrast to his suspicious father.

I looked at their tight, young bodies, and fresh eager faces. They have two-thirds of their lives ahead of them, while I’d used up a lot of mine just this week. Was it fair to feed my ego with their youth and enthusiasm? It gave me a serious qualm, but I was able to quell it. They might be young, but they were resilient. If it didn’t work out, they’d get over it quicker than I would. While we set up for the practice, I did a mental scan of my planner. Convention tomorrow, date with three young men Friday night, a date with the father of young man Saturday afternoon, and funeral in between. No problem.

11

With the guys’ sensitivity well established and the details of our date worked out, we got down to practicing. It was a good thing I waited until we were done before I mentioned I’d met Drum’s dad last night.

“My dad was at the Tandoor Club?”

“Well, outside. That's where the body was.”

“Body?” Tommy left off putting up his instrument and edged closer. “That sounds interesting.”

“Only if you're not the one who tripped over it.”

“You tripped over a body? Tell us about it.”

They clustered around me like cute ghouls until I mentioned that victim’s name was Paul Mitchell.

There was a short silence.

“Couldn’t be our Paul Mitchell,” Tommy said, without conviction. “He’s not the kind of guy to get snuffed. Too straight arrow.”

Jerome sounded equally unconvinced. “He’s Guard. Shipping out for the Gulf next week, right after the rally.”

But we all knew it was their Paul.

As Jerome so elegantly put it, major bummer of a day. At least it couldn’t get any worse. Or so I thought. I drove home and found a message on my machine from Rosemary. The condensed, repeatable version was that she’d found out about her car.

From the police.

Right before they put her in a line-up with a bunch of hookers.

Since I lacked the skills of a fugitive and it wasn’t Rosemary’s fault she was my twin, I decided to turn myself in. It had nothing to do with the fact that it would be safer for me to be in jail now that she knew about her car. In the police station I approached the desk, but before I could ask about Rosemary, I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Miss Stanley?” I turned to find Drum’s dad, Detective Dillon looking at me, his signature suspicious expression in place. “Is something wrong?”

“Maybe.” The look in his eyes killed any urge I might have to confess. “My sister’s here. Somewhere.”

“Really.”

I didn’t like the way he said it, but I had no choice but to follow him through two doors. Far too quickly I found myself looking at my sister. At least I had police protection. I looked at said protection. Their mutually shocked expressions, made me realize I’d be a fool to count on them for anything until they had time to assimilate the fact that we were twins and they’d gotten the wrong one. Rosemary didn’t have to assimilate anything. She knew what she wanted to do. Her fingers curled into claws. She started toward me.

Time to play the guilt card. “So, how was your date with Mike?”

An interrogation room in a police station is not a good place to be left alone with your thoughts. Dillon and his partner, Willis, whose fish-like visage made me itch to sketch him, took Rosemary away to arrange her release, leaving me to ponder my situation. The pondering was not fruitful. I didn’t know if asking for a lawyer would make me look guiltier or if a strip search would be better or worse than my yearly pelvic exam? With my thoughts doing a mouse-on-a-wheel, I needed a distraction. Since illustration is my usual response to stress, I produced a battered sketch book and a piece of pencil from the deep depths of my purse. A few swift strokes and Cochran appeared on the page wearing prison stripes. I added tiny caricatures of Willis and Dillon doing a Russian dance on either side of him. Willis was a fish, of course. Dillon was a dog, a yippy, dust-mop dog.

Dillon. I paused and frowned into the distance. He was, I was sure, my enemy. Wait until he found out I’m sort of dating his son. I’d never get out of jail.

Jail. How had I got into this mess? My fingers moved as my thoughts roamed back to the how. Dates, deaths and car chases tumbled together. Had I really seen the round-headed man at the Tandoor? And how much should I tell the cops about Kel?

Not that I had that much to tell—

The door opened. I jumped, spilling pad and pencil onto the floor. The pencil rolled across the uneven linoleum floor and came to rest against Dillon’s shoe.

“Sorry.” I crouched to retrieve my stuff. Willis bent to help me and our heads collided.

“I didn’t mean to assault you,” I gasped.

He grinned and scooped my pad out from under my hand. “Try to relax, Miss Stanley. We’re not ogres.”

I looked past him to Dillon. He didn’t look like he