Free Thoroughly 10 - What Are You Wearing to Die? by Patricia Sprinkle

and gotten them out of a spot of trouble on their honeymoon, 3 I loved them almost like my own.
    Maynard was his usual good-looking self, his blond ponytail confined by a black ribbon that matched a black shirt he wore with gray pants. I doubted that he had dressed for the occasion. Having lived in New York, he tended to wear arty clothes. Selena, like Robin’s younger daughter, had red curls, but hers looked dimmed that evening and her freckled face was pale beneath them. “I’ve been puny this week, so Maynard has been looking after me.”
    Without thinking, I glanced down at her stomach.
    “No, I am not pregnant. People have been asking me that all day. I had a stomach virus, that’s all.” She turned on her heel and marched toward the kitchen.
    I gave Maynard an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry. I guess we’re all waiting for an announcement from you two.” Since Maynard grew up eating cookies in my kitchen, I felt I could talk to him like a son.
    He colored up. “You may be waiting for a long time. We’re not having any luck in that department, and it’s got Selena on edge.”
    I changed the subject. We chatted until I saw Joe Riddley headed my way. “Please tell Selena how sorry I am,” I requested. “I didn’t mean to upset her.”
    Joe Riddley hooked me around the neck. “You got anybody else you want to upset, or are you ready to go?”
     
    The children were on the front walk, blowing bubbles under the supervision of a tall, sturdy woman with thick glasses and black hair that flowed over her shoulders in an unruly mane. She must be at least twenty, but had the unfinished look of a young teenager.
    Robin sat on the bottom step, watching them. As we passed her, I said, “I’m sorry about your truck.”
    She swiped back a tendril of loose hair behind her ear. “Me, too. I had a six-year loan on that thing, and the folks down in Dublin say I’ll have to pay it off, even though the truck was totaled. They say I owe five thousand dollars more than they’re allowing me on it. Can they really make me pay on a truck I no longer have?”
    “I’m afraid they can. Those six-year loans are nothing except one more way to lure folks into buying what they can’t afford.”
    Joe Riddley put a hand on my elbow to remind me not to get on a soapbox and preach at somebody who was already converted. “Go talk to Laura MacDonald over at MacDonald Motors,” he suggested to Robin. “She might have something on her used-car lot she can let you have at a reasonable price.”
    Robin sighed. “I sure hate to pay for something I’m not getting to use.”
    I felt a tug on my pants leg and looked down into the pleading face of her three-year-old. “I like you. Can I go home with you?”
    I gently detached her hand. “You don’t even know me, honey, and you’d miss your mama and your sister.”
    She flicked a glance toward her mother, then turned back to me. “Can I come play at your house for a little while?”
    “Not tonight. Maybe another time.”
    What made me say that? If I took one child, I’d have to invite them both, and I wasn’t sure our house could survive her hyperactive sister.
     
    Neither Joe Riddley nor I slept well that night. We tossed, turned, and lay awake discussing how dreadful it would be to lose a child or a grandchild and how much our hearts went out to Trevor. My pillow was wet and soggy by the time we’d finished. When I shifted my head over onto Joe Riddley’s, it was damp, too.
    I got up and fetched fresh ones from the guest room bed, then went to the kitchen and got myself a glass of cold water. As I climbed back between the sheets, I noticed the clock. “It’s five—hardly worth trying to sleep. We’ll have to get up in a couple of hours.”
    Joe Riddley was already snoring.
    I lay there with my thoughts going round and round. Why had Starr left her daddy’s house when they had been getting along so well? Was that before or after she went off the wagon? Why had she gone off