Free 50% Off Murder (Good Buy Girls) by Josie Belle

the office where she did medical billing for Dr. Franklin. It had been a full-time job when she was younger, but now that Dr. Franklin was semiretired, Maggie worked just part-time for him.
    As she turned onto Main Street and passed the library, she refused to look at the building. She didn’t even want to catch a glance of Sam Collins, for fear that he’d manage to get past her defenses again.
    She inhaled a deep breath through her nose, held it and slowly let it out through her mouth. There was no point in dwelling on the past, no point in even thinking about it. Herlife had worked out the way it was supposed to, for if she hadn’t fallen in love with and married Charlie, she wouldn’t have Laura. She couldn’t imagine her life without her bright, beautiful girl. So there it was.
    There was no point in looking over her shoulder at the shadows of her youth—it served no purpose. Of course, if she followed that line of thought, there wasn’t much point in being so angry with Sam Collins either. She didn’t think she was quite ready to let go of that, however.
    She drove across St. Stanley to Spring Gardens, the assisted-care facility that was built into one of the historic homes in the center of town. Dr. Franklin had left his busy practice and kept a small office in the facility, figuring that the patients who needed him the most were the elderly who resided at Spring Gardens.
    Maggie turned in past the large, wrought-iron gate that framed the gravel drive leading to the tall, three-story red brick building. A fountain bubbled in the middle of the circular drive, which she turned off of toward the small lot at the side of the building.
    She parked in the staff section of the lot and found her ID badge.
    As she headed toward the building, she saw Ray Roberson seated in the facility’s bus with his feet up on the dash while he scanned the newspaper. An older black man, heavyset with graying hair and dentures that he liked to move around in his mouth when he was cogitating on a problem, Ray had been a school bus driver back in the day. In fact, Maggie had ridden his bus when she went to St. Stanley Elementary. When Ray had retired, he’d bought one of the old school buses that was about to be retired as well.Now he lived at Spring Gardens, rent free, in return for being the facility’s on-call bus driver.
    Maggie stopped by the open door of the bus and called, “Hi, Mr. Ray.”
    “Well, hello, Miss Maggie,” he said as he lowered the paper. “I didn’t think you worked today.”
    “I don’t,” she said. “But I thought I’d pop on over. I have a bit of a dilemma, you see.”
    “Do tell,” he said as he shuffled his dentures from side to side.
    “I promised Hugh Simpson that eighteen people would come by the Frosty for ice cream, or he’s going to fire Max Button,” she said.
    “Might be good for the boy,” Ray said. “He’s too smart to stay there.”
    “Agreed, but since I’m the one who got him in trouble for abandoning his post, I don’t want him fired on my account.”
    “Now where could you find eighteen ice cream eaters?” Ray asked. “I’m betting the bingo hall might offer supply to your demand.”
    “That is an excellent suggestion, Mr. Ray,” she said. “Are you feeling up for a drive, by any chance?”
    “I could be persuaded.”
    “Bus driver gets a freebie,” she said.
    “A cone or a sundae?” he asked.
    “Sundae, for sure,” she said.
    “With whipped cream and sprinkles?”
    “And a cherry.”
    “I don’t like cherries,” he said.
    “No cherry, then,” she said.
    “Mmm, I guess I could go for a sundae.”
    “Excellent,” Maggie said. “Prep the bus. They’ll be out in five.”
    Maggie entered the side door to the building and headed over to the recreation room. There was an intense game of bingo going on.
    As Paula Duwalter called out, “B1,” Jerry and Dennis Applebaum looked like they were about to come to blows. Paula did not look particularly fazed by