Free The Private Eye by Jayne Ann Krentz, Julie Miller, Dani Sinclair Page B

clues.”
    “A manual, you say? How reassuring,” Maggie measured
flour for pancakes. “Did you see it advertised on the back of a cereal box and
send away for it with a coupon?”
    “Probably,” Josh said. “I eat a lot of cereal. I almost
never get real home-cooked breakfasts, you see.”
    “Well, well, well. Fireworks already.” The Colonel
winked at Odessa. “Sounds like things are going to be lively around here for
the next month.”
    Shirley walked into the kitchen, yawning. “You know
what my Ricky always used to say about two people who went at it right off the
bat like Josh and Maggie here?”
    “No. What did Ricky 'The Wrecker’ used to say?” Josh
asked.
    “He'd say they were either meant for each other or else
they would wind up throttling each other. One of the two.”
    “An interesting choice,” Josh observed blandly.
    MAGGIE WAS RATHER surprised to discover that during the
next few days Josh fitted himself very comfortably into the routine at
Peregrine Manor. As his injured ribs and ankle improved, he even turned out to
be surprisingly useful around the place. He was always up first and had the
coffee going by the time Maggie came downstairs. Furthermore, he seemed to be
quite handy in the home-repair department. He gave her a hand painting three of
the guest bathrooms, fixed a broken toilet seat and rehung the canopy over his
bed.
    And he did not make any more passes.
    “I still don't know if you're much of an investigator,
but you're certainly saving me a bundle of money that I would normally have
spent on Dwight,” Maggie told him at one point.
    “Who's Dwight?”
    “Dwight Wilcox is a handyman in town. He usually takes
care of the minor repairs around here for me,” she explained.
    By the end of the week Maggie realized she had already
grown accustomed to Josh's presence. The intimacy of sharing the kitchen with
him in the early morning hours had become something she unconsciously looked
forward to each day.
    As far as she could tell, he was dutifully making
inquiries into the incidents at Peregrine Manor. Josh spent a lot of time with
the Colonel examining the basement where many of the problems had occurred, and
he talked to Odessa and Shirley at length. He asked questions about the nephews
and about Ricky 'The Wrecker' Ring. Furthermore, he disappeared into his room
for hours on end to work on his computer-It all seemed very professional to
Maggie.
    The only really annoying aspect of the situation was
that she was getting very tired of making tea and scones at three in the
afternoon.
    “I wonder what he does on that thing?” Shirley asked on
Friday. She was sitting at the kitchen table along with the others. They were
all watching Maggie mix up the scone dough.
    Josh had been up in his room for the past three hours
and Maggie knew he would be down any minute de “Checking out the information
he's collecting.” The Colonel looked knowledgeable. “Our man is a modem sort of
investigator, just as I've suspected. Does most of his research on a computer,
he told me. Quite bright, too. Shows a good grasp of technical matters, in
general. Understood most of the details I gave him about my experiments, for
example.”
    Odessa nodded, not looking up from her knitting.
    “Very easy to talk to, I'll say that much for him. I
told him all about my three atrocious nephews. He certainly seemed to
understand how nasty family can get. Said a lot of his early work in the
investigation business involved unfortunate family situations.”
    Josh appeared in the doorway, minus his crutches.
    Maggie glanced at him as she bent over to shove the pan
of scones into the oven. “No. Not for another fifteen minutes. Where are the
crutches?”
    “I don't need them anymore. See?” Josh walked carefully
into the room. He still limped but it was obvious he was again mobile. “I'll be
all right as long as I don't try to run up and down the stairs. Boy, am I
hungry”
    “Yes, it has been a whole three hours