Free First Kill All the Lawyers by Sarah Shankman

you mean, Forrest Ridley’s body?” Edison exclaimed loudly. “The man’s a senior partner. He can’t be dead!”
    And with that, the party froze, dead still. Champagne tulips stopped halfway to lips. Words were bitten half-through like cigars. Then the buzz began, and grew and grew until it was almost a roar, and in the midst of it, there was a sharper swell of noise as a woman screamed. George suddenly appeared at Sam’s side, and she never did see who had uttered such an anguished, unladylike sound.

Six
    Sam jolted awake and, with her eyes still closed, slammed her hand down on the alarm clock on her bedside table. But it kept ringing. She peeled one eye open and stared at it. Seven A.M. Harpo glared at her from the foot of her bed. Still ringing. She fumbled for the telephone.
    “Meet me at the IHOP on Ponce for breakfast,” the voice on the other end said. “I have something important to tell you.”
    “Who is this?”
    “Come on, Sam. It’s Beau. Get up and get dressed and meet me.”
    “Are you crazy?”
    “For Christ’s sake, it’s about Forrest Ridley. Don’t you want this story?”
    Sam was quiet for a moment as the events of the previous night played back through her mind like an old movie: the announcement of Ridley’s death, the hubbub and confusion, the drive back home, skipping the Varsity. But she remembered too the way she’d felt when she’d seen Beau again—the confusion of all those years of hating him, blocking him, forgetting him, and then zap! he touched her, and that tingle.
    “No.”
    “No what? No, you don’t want this story? Or, no, you don’t want breakfast at the IHOP?”
    “None of it.”
    He paused. “Okay, you’re right. The IHOP’s a bad choice.”
    It was, for they’d eaten scores of blueberry pancakes there when they were lovers. The peaked-roof restaurant was filled with memories. Sam had avoided the chain ever since, even in San Francisco.
    “How about the Silver Skillet?” he suggested.
    “No.”
    “Gravy and biscuits, along with the skinny on Forrest Ridley? First dibs on what the Watkin County sheriff had to say? Wear your raincoat. It’s pouring.”
    He was tempting her. But the Silver Skillet was another of their old haunts.
    Then, as if he could read her mind, he said, “Melvin’s, and that’s my best offer.”
    “Where’s Melvin’s?”
    She could hear his grin as he gave her directions.
    “This had better be worth it.”
    *
    In the parking lot Sam spotted what had to be Beau’s car, a silver BMW with MD plates. Except for the color, it was a twin to hers. She frowned. The coincidence didn’t please her.
    As she ran for the front door, raindrops were dancing in the puddles.
    Melvin’s, on Northside Drive, had that look of most of Atlanta’s favorite breakfast hangouts: decorated with a medley of chrome and Formica, it was ramshackle, greasy, and seedy. But the biscuits were fluffy, the coffeepot bottomless, and you could order fresh pork loin, country or sugar-cured ham, a pork chop, or two kinds of sausage with your eggs, grits, and redeye gravy.
    Beau stood at the counter talking with a waitress whose nametag declared her to be Bernice. He was dressed in a dark gray suit with a raincoat tossed over his shoulder. She hated the way he looked; he was absolutely, even first thing in the morning, beautiful. She was glad she’d just thrown on jeans, a bright red sweatshirt, and a matching smudge of lipstick. Let him see how little she cared about this meeting.
    “God, you look wonderful,” he said, turning as she approached. “I love the yellow slicker. Makes you look like a kid.”
    “Coffee, please,” she said, looking straight at Bernice.
    “Make that two.” Beau took Sam’s elbow and led her toward the last booth in the back corner.
    She wondered if he often brought women here for breakfast. Was this his early morning hideaway? Or did he and what’s-her-name, that woman from Boston he’d married, have a match made in