Free Pillow Stalk (A Mad for Mod Mystery) by Diane Vallere Page A

There was a small Tupperware of frozen jambalaya left over from a big batch I’d made last month. I pulled the lid off and nuked it.
    I carried the hot Tupperware to the table and set it down next to the newspaper. While the rice, sausage, and chicken concoction cooled, I unfolded the paper. I was so hungry that I scooped a forkful of jambalaya into my mouth, only to burn my tongue. I ran to the refrigerator and chugged milk directly from the carton.
    I turned back to the table. The Tupperware had fallen to the floor and Rocky was lapping up the spilled jambalaya. “ Rocky! No! ” He froze. I crossed the small room, and with a wad of paper towels in my hand, cleaned up the mess that was left. I wasn’t looking forward to finding out what jambalaya did to a puppy’s intestinal tract.
    “Go to your crate,” I commanded.
    He stared at me with soulful brown eyes that looked like a melted Hershey’s Special Dark and my heart broke a little. But he was still a puppy and puppies have to learn.
    I won the standoff and he walked, both tail and head down, to the metal cage that sat along the east wall of the apartment. I pushed the door shut but didn’t bother to lock it.
    When I returned to the table it was with a torn off piece of bread that had been sliced open and slathered with butter. I sat in front of the newspaper and smoothed my hand over the creases.
    That’s when I saw the headline.
    Unsolved Twenty-Year-Old Homicide in Lakewood Back in Public Eye
    I scanned the article. Twenty years ago a woman had been left for dead by the side of White Rock Lake. Her body had been found dressed only in white cotton panties and a man’s denim shirt. There was no evidence of sexual assault. Details indicated she’d been killed in a different location from where she’d been discovered, her body moved after the crime was committed. Eyewitnesses saw a stranger drive her to her apartment building that night, providing the only substantial lead.
    The reporter had written a piece heavy on nostalgia that begged for the reader’s attention. Attractive, blonde, Sheila Murphy smiled at me from the photo they ran next to the story, side by side the promotional photo Pamela Ritter had used on her real estate flyers. Two blonde women, murdered, twenty years apart from each other. Oddly, both women bore a striking resemblance to Doris Day, but that wasn’t the strangest part of the article. It was the ending.
    Hudson James, longtime Lakewood resident, was taken into custody for the murder of Sheila Murphy, but was not charged with the crime. He declined comment for this article.
    Both murders remain unsolved.

NINE

    The heat left my body, and I felt like my bones had been dipped in ice water. It was about eighty degrees in the apartment, yet my hands went white and rattling teeth shook my jaw. Somehow I reached Rocky’s crate and opened the door. He bounded out and I scooped him up and held him close. It wasn’t until I felt his wet fur against my cheek that I realized I was crying.
    “How can that be?” I whispered. I carried him past the bathroom to my bedroom and set him on the purple and white polka-dotted comforter. In lieu of a headboard, I had a skyline jigsawed out of particleboard, painted lilac, and mounted on the wall behind the bed, backlit with soft twinkling Christmas lights. The glow from the cutout windows illuminated the room. I looked out the back window, half-expecting to see the lieutenant’s Jeep in the parking lot. Instead, a blue pick-up truck patched with primer circled past the parked cars.
    Instinctively I backed away from the window, realizing too late that Hudson had seen me. I stood in the shadows with Rocky clutched close to my chest until the truck pulled out of the lot moments later. There was no doubt in my mind that Hudson had been watching my windows to see when I’d arrived home.
    Hudson, who had refused to give me a ride.
    Hudson, who had a deep, dark secret that had just been exposed.
    Hudson,