Free Dangerously Dark by Colette London Page B

verge of a nefarious “accidental” death, I couldn’t help touching on every possible scenario. How eloquently Travis would eulogize me. How sadly Danny would break down over my grave. How my family would mourn me, and how . . .
    Wait a minute. Was that movement outside my living-room window?
    Startled out of my morbid daydreams, I went still. If someone was out there, it had to be Tomasz or Janel, come to find out if I’d succumbed to whatever they’d dosed me with.
    Well, if they weren’t merely murderers but gloating murderers, they were going to be disappointed. Because there was nothing like a genuine emergency, I learned, to jolt a person out of an imaginary disaster. With someone seemingly creeping right outside my front door, I found the strength to fight back.
    I dropped my phone on the sofa’s throw again and picked up a poker from the fireplace instead. Hefting it in my trembling hand, I crept toward the curtained window to have a better look.
    Almost there, I heard the clunk of footsteps on the front porch. I froze again, listening hard. I tried to picture the front of the house, hoping to pinpoint the intruder’s position.
    All that came to mind were muzzy memories of treacherously steep stairs leading to a wide porch—and a solid door with a stubbornly uncooperative dead bolt. I grumbled to myself at the memory of it. Yesterday my key hadn’t worked to unlock it.
    Although Tomasz had had no trouble opening the door and ushering me inside beneath my foursquare’s hipped roof and center dormer, I recalled. So maybe the dead bolt’s balkiness owed more to (tipsy) operator error than inherent faultiness.
    Humph. If I wasn’t fatally dosed with some lethal poison, then I really had to watch it with the porter in the future.
    Another scrape of footsteps jerked me straight back to the present. Very cautiously, I leaned sideways. Through the window, I glimpsed someone standing on my porch. I couldn’t see who it was. From my vantage point, all I could make out was a sliver of a be-jeaned form, a slice of red-and-black checked coat, and a hint of Fair Isle knitwear. Maybe a beanie? I wasn’t sure.
    What were the chances—honestly—that a murderous intruder would wear a cap that could have been knit by his or her grammy?
    I strode to the front door and wrenched it open.
    Austin Martin stood on my house’s welcome mat. Or, more accurately, he jumped sky-high on my house’s welcome mat.
    â€œUrgh!” he burbled. “Hayden! Hey! I was just about to knock. You scared me.”
    I’d scared him ? That was funny. But Austin’s pale round face (at least what I could see above his scruffy facial hair) and jittery laugh confirmed it. My bravado vanished.
    My headache, unfortunately, didn’t.
    Maybe this was a devious, slow-acting poison? Given the way I felt just then, I would have believed it. I swear I could feel my eyeballs shriveling in my skull. I was unnaturally conscious of my roiling intestines, too. I had definitely been poisoned yesterday. There was no other explanation for the way I felt.
    Suffused with relief to see another (harmless) human being, I gave him a cheery “Austin! Hi!” It came out as a croak.
    He widened his eyes. “You, uh . . .” He pointed, backing up a step. He gazed fixedly at my doorbell. “You’re busy,” Austin finally blurted. “I’ll come back later. Sorry to bug you.”
    He was already scampering down the steps, trailing wool fibers and the scent of one of those noxious aftershaves (the ones with names like BOLT! and CHISELED!), before I wised up.
    The chilly springtime breeze helped with that. Because a draft suddenly ruffled the T-shirt and boxers I’d slept in, making me remember that I was nowhere near decent for company.
    But I was interested in finding out if Austin thought I’d been poisoned. I might need him to call an ambulance, too.
    Setting