Free Shadow's Lady (A Pajaro Bay Cozy Mystery + Sweet Romance) by Barbara Cool Lee Page B

puffing up with pride at her brood, Mrs. DiPietro had reacted with a look Lori could only interpret as grief. The woman, who suddenly looked very old and bent with worry, had murmured something polite as she set their steaming plates of seafood pasta on the table and then quickly disappeared back into the kitchen.
    Lori knew she had said something very wrong, but she hadn't known what until Aunt Zee had explained that the family's eldest child wasn't going to be waiting tables in their restaurant any time soon.
    Because Matt DiPietro was the Shadow.
    The murderer.
     

chapter seven
     
    The soup bowl hit the floor with a crash.
    "Are you all right?" The Shadow's voice came from behind the bedroom door. "What was that noise?"
    "Nothing." She picked up the pieces of the broken bowl as quietly as possible.
    "Are you hurt?" he asked. "Do you need help?" She heard the brass bed creak. He must be trying to get up.
    "No!" She swallowed hard, then tried it again, in what she hoped was a calmer voice. "No, thank you. I just dropped the soup bowl. I don't need any help. Go back to sleep."
    "Okay," he said. "Be careful not to cut yourself."
    She held her breath and waited until she heard the bed creak again as he presumably lay back down.

    •••

    She spent a sleepless night at the kitchen table, with one hand on a heavy, snow-globe paperweight in case he came for her in the middle of the night.
    At least she intended for it to be a sleepless night. But the strain of the day must have finally gotten the better of her.
    She woke up with a stiff neck, her head resting on the kitchen table. Ophelia's fluffy tail waved about, slapping her across the face.
    "Ack! Move, beast!"
    Ophie jumped down off the table, then up onto the Aga.
    She looked around the kitchen. The lights were on. Rain pattered against the kitchen window, and the foghorn was sounding. The kitchen clock said 10:15. There was some light outside the window, so it must be 10:15 in the morning, not evening. But why was she holding a paperweight?
    She was dressed in her jeans and tee-shirt. Her latest batch of photos were scattered across the table. She must have been working and dozed off.
    She got up and shuffled over to the Aga to put the kettle on. Wow, there sure was a lot more cat hair on the pine floor than she ever remembered seeing before.
    And it was black.
    Dog hair.
    It all came back to her—the howl of the dog, the seizure by the cliff, the injured pirate sleeping down the hall in her brass bed.
    The paperweight in her hand was to protect her from the Shadow.
    A paperweight wouldn't be much help against a murderer. She set it down on the table.
    She had a whopper of a headache. She'd had a seizure yesterday. No wonder she kept falling asleep. It was amazing she'd stayed conscious as long as she had.
    She felt like she was going to be sick. What kind of monster had she brought into this house?
    During their dinner at Matteo's Restaurant, Aunt Zee had been reluctant to give her details about the DiPietros. She had thought it odd that the great-aunt who always joyfully regaled her with gossip about every Hollywood star and jet-setter would balk at telling the story of one local boy gone bad.
    But Aunt Zee had said this was different. This was a genuine tragedy: the story of a small-town family that had worked to give their kids a better life, only to have their eldest son become one of the most despicable gangsters on the West Coast.
    Matt DiPietro. The Shadow. She wished she had been able to drag more info out of Aunt Zee.
    It wasn't like she could go wake him up and ask him what the story was. 'So, I hear you murder people,' she might start. 'Is there much money in that line of work?'
    What had Aunt Zee said? She tried to remember every detail of that dinner at Matteo's.
    He had been a high school football star (she'd been right in thinking he was a dumb jock), had gone off to college, but had gotten involved in some sort of drug gang and had killed some rival