Free A Deadly Encounter (A Seagrove Cozy Mystery Book 3) by Leona Fox Page B

saw you at the Hyattsville funeral home. Standing around with your boyfriend. Thinking you are better than everyone else.”
     
    “You made Victor into a clown,” Sadie said, “because he accused you of making his wife into a clown.” The light turned green and she started to drive, thinking hard about where she should go now. Would he notice if she drove to the police station?
     
    “I made him a clown because he was a clown. He didn’t deserve his wife. If I were her husband she would have lived. I would have made sure of it.”
     
    “But didn’t she die of cancer?” Sadie asked. “What could you do about that?”
     
    “Cancer is survivable with the correct treatment,” he said. “I would have made sure she got it. Besides, if she had been with me she never would have gotten cancer.”
     
    “You could have prevented her from getting cancer?” she asked while thinking he was delusional.
     
    “Of course. Women who get enough attention don’t get cancer,” he said. “Cancer is the immune system’s response to neglect. I would not have neglected her.”
     
    Sadie stayed quiet. He was clearly living in an alternate reality. If she contradicted him he may decide shooting her was his only option. She really didn’t want to get shot. She turned down the street the station was on, and she was right, he was too busy obsessing to notice where she was going. She cruised past the station slowly, but there was no one outside to notice.
     
    She drove round the block, praying he wouldn’t notice what she was doing. Again there was no one in front of the station. She cursed her luck and tried again. How many times could she circle the police station before he noticed?
     
    The third time around he was all of a sudden aware of his surroundings and he shoved the gun in her direction. “Drive to the town beach,” he said. “And make it quick.”
     
    She headed to the town beach, driving as much under the speed limit as she dared, but it still didn’t take long. She parked in a pool of light cast by the lone light pole. She sat while he got out, wondering if he would shoot her if she refused to get out of the car. He pulled her door open and gestured for her to get out.
     
    “Where are we going?” she asked, not moving from her seat.
     
    “You are going into the water,” he said, “and I’m going to watch from dry land.”
     
    “I don’t understand what you are trying to accomplish,” Sadie said. “Everyone knows what you have done. Killing me won’t solve your problems.”
     
    “If I kill you, Chief Woodstone will be too distraught to put together a case against me. It will give me time to get away.”
     
    “The chief is not the only one capable of compiling a case,” Sadie said. “I think it will go better for you if you let me live.”
     
    “Out,” he said.
     
    “I’ll get out if you tell me how you found the murder weapon in my shop. It was in a locked drawer.” Stall, stall, stall, she told herself. Give the chief time to find us.
     
    He laughed. “Nothing easier. Those drawers have a very simple lock,” he said. “When I was in college I had a roommate who earned his way through school by picking locks. He taught me. It comes in handy more than you might think,” he preened, and Sadie thought she might be sick.
     
    “But why where you looking through my drawers?”
     
    “You gave me the idea. Remember when you came home with that potato peeler and you pointed out how it looked as though it could be used to drain blood? I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It did look like it could drain the blood from a person. I wanted to try it. It wasn’t hard to find. It was in the second drawer I opened. I kept it in my pocket for a long time before the opportunity presented itself.”
     
    He smiled a slow smile that gave Sadie chills.
     
    “It worked really well,” he said. “Almost as well as the tool made to pierce veins. He bled out into the river so fast. Almost too