Free Taken In by Elizabeth Lynn Casey

you named her, Twin.”
    “Does it matter?” Leona hissed at her sister. “It was still my inspiration. How can I sit idly by while his killer is on the loose?”
    Margaret Louise linked her arms across her ample chest and laughed. “Then you best get crackin’, Twin. The limousine will be here tomorrow afternoon ’round two o’clock to collect us and get us back to the air—”
    A click on the far side of the room brought Leona’s hand to her hair and an order for quiet from her lips. “He’s coming!”
    “He?” Debbie echoed just as Detective Pollop emerged with an ashen-faced Dixie.
    Tori leapt to her feet. “Dixie, are you . . .” The words trailed from her mouth as a flash of silver caught her gaze and pulled it from Dixie’s pasty white complexion to her handcuffed hands.
    “Wait! What are you doing?”
    The detective led Dixie through the sitting area and over to the door, his gait slowing long enough to answer Tori’s question. “Your friend has been arrested for the murder of John Dreyer.”
    Gasps rang up around the room, igniting a torrent of tears from Dixie in response. Neither was loud enough, though, to abate the sudden roar of fear and rage in Tori’s ears. “You’re arresting
Dixie
? For
murder
?”
    “I’m taking her downtown for processing.” Detective Pollop opened the door, ushered Dixie into the hall, then looked back over his shoulder with a solemn expression. “You might want to hire your friend an attorney. She’s going to need one.”

Chapter 8

    Tori was exhausted by the time she let herself into the still-lit hotel suite at nearly ten o’clock that night, the stress of the police station and the depression over her friend’s plight leaving her stranded in utter helplessness.
    “Oh, thank God you’re here,” Rose said as she shuffled her way to the door with a speed that hadn’t been seen in years. “Where is Dixie? Is she okay?”
    They were the questions Tori had been dreading hearing since she stepped out of the station with the cold hard answers in tow. To leave one brokenhearted and terrified friend, only to be the one who set off those same helpless emotions in the five women now staring at her, waiting, was more than a little difficult.
    “She’s—” Tori stopped, swallowed, and began again. “Dixie is still in jail. And she’ll remain there until her arraignment in the morning.”
    “Her
arraignment
?” Debbie whispered amid the gasps of their friends. “You can’t be serious.”
    Tori’s sigh was long yet depleted as she slumped against the closest wall. “I’m afraid I am.”
    “But how on God’s green earth can they possibly think our Dixie was involved?” Margaret Louise challenged.
    “Not involved . . .
responsible
.”
    “But this is
Dixie
we’re speaking of.”
    Leona rolled her eyes in Beatrice’s general direction. “We all know good and well that Dixie can get mighty nasty when things don’t go her way. Just look at the way she treated Victoria when she came to Sweet Briar.”
    Five mouths gaped wide with Tori being the first to recover well enough to speak. “She may have made nasty comments and shot some evil death glares in my direction, Leona, but that doesn’t make her any more capable of murder than the rest of us and you know that!”
    Leona took three steps backward and lowered herself to the edge of the nearest armchair. “I wasn’t saying she was capable of murder. I was just putting the halo Beatrice was trying to put on Dixie’s head in perspective.”
    Rose was the next to recover. “I can’t figure you out, Leona Elkin. Just this morning you volunteered to stay behind and look after Dixie. Now she’s behind bars and you’re upset that Beatrice believes in Dixie’s innocence?” Then, before Leona could respond, Rose lowered her voice to a well-defined hiss. “Just do us all a favor and shut up.
Please
.”
    “What can you tell us?” Debbie said, pulling everyone’s focus back to Tori. “They