Free Building Blocks of Murder by Vanessa Gray Bartal Page B

permeating the air. It was only September, but the leaves seemed to be dropping earlier this year. Or maybe it was just Lacy projecting her gloomy mood on the rest of the world. At least now she wasn’t drenched in sweat every time she went for a jog, however. Spring and fall were the only brief windows of time where running was even slightly tolerable. Then came summer and winter where she was either freezing or melting, adding to her misery as she pounded the pavement.
    As she suited up and began to jog, Lacy tried, really tried, to let her mind go and allow the endorphins to take over. Other people found running to be a stress reliever. Why shouldn’t she? But as she took each step, all she could think was how much her lungs burned, how the cookies now sat like lead in her stomach, how she wanted more cookies as soon as she arrived home, how she must look to passersby in her mismatched spandex that did nothing to stop her from jiggling in all the wrong places. And no matter how hard she tried, she could never seem to find a smooth stride. Instead she ran with a herky-jerky motion as if she were an injured soldier trying to flee from a live grenade. One leg always seemed to drag a half step behind the other, forcing her stomach to twist at an unnatural angle as she tried to bring it even again.
    By the time she arrived home, she was exhausted, gross, and ready for another shower. She had just finished applying her mascara when Keegan knocked on the front door. She heard the politely muttered words exchanged between him and her grandparents and exited her room with a smile.
    “Wow,” Keegan said, standing with a smile of welcome as she entered the room. “You look awesome, Lacy.”
    “Thanks,” she said. She waved a cheerful goodbye to her grandparents as she followed Keegan to his car. “Where are you taking me?”
    “Wait and see,” Keegan said, his chipper smile firmly in place.
    “What is it with the people in your family, Keegan? Is no one ever in a bad mood?”
    Keegan laughed, glancing at her in his peripheral vision. “Sure we are. I suppose we’re too entrenched in our sturdy English Underwood heritage. You know—keeping a stiff upper lip, and all that.” He glanced at her again. “With red hair and green eyes you’re pretty much Irish, huh?”
    “I don’t know,” Lacy said. “I recently found out my mother’s adopted. I don’t know much about my biological grandmother’s family. Maybe she was Irish; she had strawberry blond hair and green eyes, too.”
    Keegan smiled. “You’re touchy about having red hair. That’s too bad; you’re a beautiful woman, Lacy.”
    Lacy blinked through the front windshield, taken aback by his matter of fact tone. “Uh, thanks,” she said.
    The drive was short, so there was no time for awkward silence before they arrived at their destination. “Here?” Lacy asked, staring up uncertainly at her new building. Had Keegan not noticed the dirt, grime, and rodent droppings everywhere? She had a hard time not wrinkling her nose in disgust.
    “Trust me,” Keegan said. “I’m going to help you make peace with your new living space.”
    “That sounds ominous,” Lacy said. She watched as Keegan unloaded an actual picnic basket from the back of his car before she followed him into the building and up the stairs to the roof. “Um, Keegan, I might not have mentioned this before, but heights and I aren’t exactly friends.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” Keegan threw over his shoulder, which apparently meant he wasn’t going to worry about it. He held the door of the roof for her, smiling coaxingly when she hesitated. “C’mon, Lacy. You’re with a professional roofer; I won’t let you fall.”
    “All right,” Lacy agreed, hesitantly edging away from the door. Keegan spread a blanket on the roof—disconcertingly far from the doorway—and began setting out food containers.
    “Did you make all this?” Lacy asked, hunger overcoming her natural reticence