Free Murder with a Twist by Allyson K Abbott Page B

own crass word back at him, but all he said was, “No.”
    Duncan dismissed Will with the same warning he had given to Theo, then he left the room and returned a short time later with Cindy Whitaker. She was a very attractive brunette with dark blue eyes rimmed with thick black lashes and a killer body that, based on the way she was currently dressed, I guessed she liked to show off. Can’t say I blame her. If I had her long legs, tiny waist, perky breasts, and slender hips, I’d probably dress a lot more risqué than I do. As it is, I favor jeans and blouses most of the time, and if I’m feeling a need to get dressed up, I might trade the jeans for a skirt. Since I like green and it’s a color that goes well with my red hair, my wardrobe is heavily weighted toward the green end of the color spectrum. Cindy Whitaker, however, had no such restrictions and today she was wearing tight-fitting, black skinny jeans with bright red heels, and a body-hugging top cut low in front that was a kaleidoscope of colors on some sort of shiny fabric. The bright, shiny hues in the blouse were dampened some by the red bolero-style jacket she wore over it, but the overall effect was a definite eye-catcher.
    In fact, it caught Duncan’s eye more than I liked. And when the chocolate taste of his voice became sweeter and smoother as he started chatting with Cindy, it didn’t sit well with me.
    Cindy’s voice had no flavor. Men’s voices almost always have a flavor, but women’s sometimes do and sometimes don’t. Those who don’t typically have an image that goes with their voices, typically undulating lines of color that sometimes appear to breathe right along with the person who is speaking. Cindy was one of those, except I’d never encountered anyone with such a specific image before. Her voice appeared in my mind as a single flame, like one might see from a steadily held cigarette lighter, blue at the bottom, yellow at the top, flickering ever so slightly with her breaths. But as soon as she finished answering the basic questions, such as who she was and where she worked, that flame grew into a roaring fire. Cindy Whitaker was hiding something; I had no doubt. And I suspected that several of the answers she gave were lies. Her interrogation went about the same as the other two with one exception. Not only was she not intimidated by anything Duncan said or asked, she appeared relaxed, composed, and amused, and she flirted with Duncan the entire time.
    She answered her questions with more composure than Will had shown and she readily admitted to suspecting that Dan was the one who was stealing money. “I mean, come on,” she said. “The guy was right out of school when he was hired and the rest of us have been at this awhile. For him to earn such remarkable returns so early in his career didn’t make sense. I knew something was up.”
    Cindy, who had joined the firm around the same time as Will, was the only one of the three to admit that Dan’s being promoted ahead of her had pissed her off. “Yeah, the guy worked hard and often put in hours way later than the rest of us, but I think that was so he could manipulate funds without being under the watchful eye of the senior partners.”
    As soon as her interrogation came to a close, I hopped off my chair and made my way out to the main portion of the station. Cindy Whitaker was taking her time leaving, continuing her flirtation with Duncan. Across the room, in some scarred-up, molded plastic chairs that were lined against the wall, sat Will and Theo. The two of them watched Cindy with lovelorn, infatuated expressions that made me realize they both had the hots for her. Whether Cindy was interested in reciprocating either boy’s interest, I couldn’t tell. She was too busy focusing on Duncan at the moment.
    I walked over to her and Duncan, and knew immediately that Cindy was a heavy smoker. The loud, twangy