Famished, Meghan O'Flynn [free ebooks romance novels .txt] 📗
- Author: Meghan O'Flynn
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Dominic led me down the walk and through a wooden door carved with a fairy-tale scene: a woman in a ball gown singing to a bird. Hokey, but somehow perfect. Inside the dress shop, row upon row of luscious fabrics lined the walls. I fingered an ornate blue gown wrapped in a layer of creamy lace.
From the back room, a woman with thin lines around her eyes approached us, her smile painted in candy-apple red. “Can I help you?” she asked me. I looked at Dominic.
“Tell her what you want. I will take a walk while you decide.”
Wait…what? This isn’t my world! My heart pounded in my throat as he handed the woman his credit card, stooped to kiss my cheek, and headed out the door.
Everything’s fine. He’ll be right back.
The woman looked at me, expectantly.
What did I want? “Um…I don’t…it’s for the symphony.”
She put a finger against her lips, appraising me.
I fought the urge to run.
“Come with me,” she said finally. “I have a lovely organza that I think will suit you nicely.”
An hour later, I left the shop with a garment bag over my arm and found Dominic on the sidewalk outside.
He took the dress. “How did it go?”
“Pretty good, I think.” Salt crunched under our shoes. “Why did you leave me alone in there?”
He kept his eyes on the walk in front of us. “I’m not sure what you mean. They didn’t have anything in my size.”
“What?” Just laugh, let it go. No, I could tell him anything. I cleared my throat, my face hot. “I…sometimes, don’t do that well with new people.”
“You are stronger than you think.” He squeezed my hand.
I snorted.
“You got the dress, didn’t you?”
I squeezed his hand back, the warmth draining from my cheeks.
Dominic stopped in front of a set of double glass doors, pulled the handle, and led me inside a room with high ceilings and four separate hallways leading toward the back of the building. Cinnamon and orange peel tickled my nose. I was still taking in the photographs of serene waterfalls when Dominic addressed the woman at the front desk.
“We have a four o’clock appointment with Genevieve.”
“Right away, sir.” The brunette behind the counter glanced at me, then back at Dominic. “Will you be accompanying our guest today?” A smocked attendant wandered by, grinning cordially with huge white teeth. I tried to smile back, but it might have looked like a grimace.
Dominic met my eyes. “Yes,” he said.
Thank goodness.
We took the blue-gray corridor on the far right and emerged into a large salon, complete with leather seats and sea-green towels that looked plush enough to sleep on.
A tall blonde wearing high heels and a skin-tight black sweater approached and held out her hand. “I’m Genevieve,” she said. “Welcome.” The corners of her lips turned up, and it made her look younger, friendlier. Her hand was warm.
I relaxed into the cushioned back of the chair as she pushed the foot pedal to raise it.
“So, what would you like to do today?” she said.
Dominic smiled down at me. “You need me for this, or shall I leave you to it?”
His eyes showed no irritation, only confident support. I sat taller, suddenly more self-assured. “Go ahead.”
My heart raced as it had in the dress shop, but this time I was ready for it. I watched Dominic’s broad back in the mirror as he retreated down the hallway.
You’re stronger than you think. I glanced up at Genevieve, sure that I would see some sign of contempt at being kept waiting. She smiled kindly.
I can do this. I am in control. I took in the green of my eyes, the milky hue of my skin, the mahogany of my hair. Somehow it all felt wrong. In the lighted vanity, the colors lent themselves to a face that looked far too much like…him.
I set my jaw. “You know, I think I may be up for a change.”
Genevieve reached for a comb.
I smiled at the mirror. I’m not his little girl. Not anymore.
Petrosky stood in the middle of the room and tried not to touch anything. All goddamn day yesterday, she had been gone, and now that she was finally here, he hoped he hadn’t wasted his time. Not that he had more pressing engagements since Graves had hijacked his fucking case.
Margaret Garner sat on the couch, a maze of tiny blue veins creeping across her nearly translucent chest like spiderwebs. “I just can’t believe she’s gone,” she said over the dry whir of the space heater.
Petrosky studied Garner’s face. He saw sorrow there, expected from someone who had been closer to his victim than her own estranged mother. But her eyes were purely sad, no twinge of surprise, no disbelief. Had Garner expected something to happen to Antoinette Michaels? What had she seen in the last three years that Michaels had been her off-and-on roommate?
“And Tim…oh, god.” She collapsed into sobs.
There’s her surprise. No one ever expected kids to die.
Petrosky watched Garner pick at a plume of stuffing peeking through the threadbare arm of the couch, her tears leaking onto her pants.
“Tell me about the last few weeks,” he said.
Garner sniffed and swiped at her eyes with a tissue. “The usual. She was trying to get back on her feet. She always got clean for a few weeks, then every time, back into the life. She worried constantly about Tim, about how she was going to get him into a good school district or whether she’d have enough money for food.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary recently?”
Garner shrugged.
“Then why did she go to the shelter?”
“Oh, that.” Garner ran a hand through hair slick with grease. “Someone beat her up, and pretty good too. But it’s all… I mean, it happens with what she was doin’.”
“Do you know who the guy was?”
She paused for too long.
Suspicion corded Petrosky’s neck.
“I—I don’t think he was a regular, but I don’t know. I haven’t done anything like that since I found my boyfriend.” Her lips twitched into a half-smile, but the corners of her mouth trembled.
She was lying. But was she hiding something relevant to this case? “I’m not here to arrest you. If I were, I’d be packing up that needle on the kitchen counter and hauling you in.”
Her mouth dropped open, eyes flicking to the kitchen.
Petrosky stepped closer. “I have no interest in your drug use, your occupation, or anything else besides finding out who killed Antoinette and Tim.”
Garner’s shoulders slumped, eyes on her lap. “I did… I mean, I can’t get in trouble for taking a message, right?”
Petrosky stared hard at her until she met his gaze.
She licked her lips. “I took a message for her.” Her sour breath hung in the air between them.
“When?”
“The night she got beat. Like I said, he wasn’t a regular; he just left an address because I told her she could use my car for the evening.”
“He left you an address?” That didn’t make sense. His killer wouldn’t just throw his address to anyone who asked for it. The guy was smarter than that; he could feel it in his bones.
“Well, he left her an address.” Garner swallowed hard. “When I answered, I was hoping it was…a friend of mine and—”
“You tried to take the job.”
She stared at him. “He got the number from one of us. I didn’t know if it was her or me. So I just pretended to be who he was looking for.”
“But he asked for her?”
Silence.
“Ma’am?”
She sighed. “Yes, he asked for her. But these guys won’t leave their information with anyone besides the girl who’s coming, and most of the time they don’t call back. I was tryin’ to help her out. I didn’t mean for her to get…for Tim to get—” Her chest heaved, and her eyes slid back to her lap.
“This wasn’t your fault. But if you have information, any information, you need to tell me now. Help me catch him, Margaret.”
She raised her eyes, and her breath was slower, more controlled. “Like I said, I just took a message. Told him I’d be… I mean, she’d be over in a little while.”
“Do you still have the address? A name?”
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