Free Drowning in Amber (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 2) by E.C. Bell Page B

took a quick glance inside. “Bathroom,” he said. “Empty.”
    Beyond the other door was a small neat bedroom. On the bureau sat another television. Honoria was not in this room, either.
    “Okay, so she’s officially not here,” I said. “What do we do now?”
    “I think we should look around,” James replied, walking up to the kitchen table. He began going through the pile of mail. examining every unopened envelope before turning to the next.
    “We came in here to snoop on her, didn’t we?” I asked. “You were counting on her not being here, weren’t you?”
    “Let’s just say an opportunity presented itself,” James replied. “Shouldn’t let one of those go by.”
    “Why?” I turned over a couple more of the sketches on the desk and looked at them. Both were of James, and they were pretty good. I held one up. “I think she has a crush on you.”
    James pointedly ignored the sketch. He walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a pile of paper bound with a large elastic band. “We need to know more about her, don’t we?”
    “I guess.” I turned over a couple more sketches. More buildings. Or, to be more exact, one building. A two-story house, looked like it was in one of the older rundown areas of Edmonton. The windows looked boarded-up. “But I don’t know why we just didn’t wait until—”
    “Until what? She tells us everything? Do you really think she’s going to do that?”
    I stopped looking at the pictures and looked at him instead. “You don’t trust her?”
    “No.” He shook his head, still going through the papers. Looked like bank statements. “I really don’t. Saying she dreams the murder. I mean, that’s just too strange.”
    “Yeah. Maybe.” I set down the sketches. I didn’t feel like digging around in her life anymore. “I don’t feel very good about going through her stuff like this—”
    “Why?” he asked. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
    “Well, yeah,” I replied, feeling trapped. He was right. I’d gone through my old boss’s office—and from the information I’d gathered, James and I had been able to prove that my boss was truly a bad man and deserved to go to jail.
    But this didn’t feel the same. Honoria was—different.
    “So what’s the difference?” he asked, and I jumped like he’d read my mind.
    “Nothing, I guess. However, she is our client.”
    “That decision hasn’t been made yet.”
    “Oh come on!” I cried. “We already said yes, mostly! And Noreen said Eddie didn’t know her—”
    “And like you said, Eddie might not have told Noreen,” he said. “I still have no reason to trust her.”
    “Oh, so you have to trust someone before you take their case for real?” I asked, walking over to a bookshelf as far from him as I could get. I pulled out a book and glanced at it. Some kind of horror thing. Wouldn’t be my cup of tea, if I read. A sheaf of papers that had been tucked in beside it slithered off the shelf in a papery waterfall.
    “Crap!” I bent down and tried to pick them up in order.
    “I don’t need to trust them,” he replied. “But I have to be able to get a read on them. I can’t with her. There’s something about her that’s—off.”
    “Yeah, well, there is the fact that she’s been hospitalized and drugged most of her life,” I said.
    I’d managed to get everything that I’d knocked to the floor more or less back in order, and looked at the top page. It had the same title as the book. The only difference was, on the typed pages, Honoria’s name appeared below the title. On the book—a different name.
    “There is that,” James replied. “I don’t know if I can trust someone who’s certifiable.”
    I glared at him. “You know, there is a possibility she actually has visions or whatever.”
    “I doubt that,” James replied, putting back the bank statements and pulling out another pile of papers. “I think her ‘visions’ are a scam.”
    “Fine. Whatever.” I looked