Free Murder Between the Covers by Elaine Viets

bookstore, her money worries, and where she would find another job.
    “Why, Rich, you animal,” she purred.

    “You didn’t get much of a tan for someone who spent three days on the beach,” grumped Margery on Monday afternoon.
    “I burn easily,” Helen said. Boy, do I, she thought. I’ve had one hot weekend.
    “Humph,” Margery said. “I can’t see the point of an ocean-view room if you keep the curtains shut the whole weekend.”
    “We took lovely moonlit walks on the beach,” Helen said. Because we didn’t get out of bed until after dark, she thought. If Thumbs hadn’t woken us demanding dinner, we might have slept all night in each other’s arms. Sunday was more of the same. When Rich left at five Monday morning, she’d stretched luxuriantly, then drifted off again on sleepwarm pillows that smelled of his spicy aftershave. She woke up at noon and treated herself to lunch at a beach restaurant with the eleven dollars she found in Chocolate the stuffed bear.
    Now it was two-thirty. Time to return to reality. Margery would drive her back to the Coronado. She had just enough time to unpack and get Thumbs settled. She had to be at the bookstore at five. Helen had to work one more night, but she didn’t even mind that.
    She sighed happily and put the cat carrier in Margery’s big white car. Her body ached in all the right places.
    “Think Rich is a keeper?” Margery said.
    “That would be nice,” Helen said. But complicated. How would she explain her ex-husband and that awful scene in court? How could she tell Rich that she was on the run?
    What had he said as he left this morning? “Now that I’ve found you, I won’t ever let you go.” His words sent shivers through Helen, but they weren’t entirely of delight. Was Rich romantic or possessive? I’ll worry about it later, she thought, loading her last suitcase into the trunk.
    “That’s it,” she said.
    “Let’s see what they’ve done to the Coronado,” Margery said. Now that she was going back home, Margery sounded like herself again. She looked like herself, too, in an outrageous shorts set abloom with magenta roses. She wore cherry-red nail polish and flirtatious dark purple kittenheeled slides that showed off her good legs and slender ankles.
    The giant tarps were gone from the Coronado. The DANGER signs had disappeared. Purple bougainvillea blossoms floated in the pool once more. Parrots screeched in the palms. Newspapers waited at the front doors. The Coronado was its old romantic self, except for the termite company’s locked shields on the doorknobs.
    All the Coronado residents were gathered by the pool, minus Phil the invisible pothead. Helen had never seen him, but she figured she’d recognize him by his smell.
    Trevor removed a doorknob shield with ceremony and opened Cal’s apartment. The Canadian looked inside and said, “Nothing’s changed. I thought you might exterminate the dirt.”
    There was polite laughter. Madame Muffy was next. The preppie psychic went into her place without a word. The shields were taken off Margery’s, Phil’s, and Helen’s doors. Peggy’s apartment was last, but Helen did not stick around for the final opening. Thumbs was howling to go home. She set his carrier down in her kitchen. He was climbing out with ruffled dignity when the screaming started.
    She heard Trevor say, “Oh, Lord, no.” Helen opened her door and saw him run inside Peggy’s apartment.
    Peggy ran after him, then screamed. Pete the parrot, confined to a cage in her car, began making a racket.
    Margery pushed her way into Peggy’s apartment, then said, “What the hell?” in a stunned voice.
    Helen followed them, slightly dazed. She could smell something powerfully bad. Poison gas? Then why had Trevor run in without his breathing gear?
    Peggy, Margery, and Trevor were standing in the bedroom. The room was dominated by an enormous fourposter bed. It seemed bigger than ordinary king-size. Emperor, maybe, or potentate. The