Free The Iced Princess by Christine Husom Page A

it even worse. I nudged my friends. “Emmy and I were both here and had no clue. Golly, I feel bad for every negative thought I had and every not very nice word I said about Molly,” I quietly said.
    â€œMe, too,” Pinky said as a tear rolled down her cheek.
    â€œEven when you’re not the best of friends with someone, you still like having them around. And you surely don’t want them to get poisoned to death, that’s for darn sure,” Erin said.
    â€œPinky, can you think of anybody who acted suspicious around here this afternoon?” I said.
    She shrugged. “When we were swamped, half the people could have been acting suspicious and I wouldn’t have noticed. Wait a minute. There was a guy who stopped by looking foryou when you were out on your break. He seemed a little odd. And he described you, instead of asking for you by name.”
    â€œReally? What did he say?”
    â€œHe asked if the blonde who worked here was around.”
    â€œThe blonde, huh? What did you tell him?”
    â€œI said, ‘Oh, you must be talking about the manager of Curio Finds.’ And he sort of shrugged and said, ‘Yeah,’ and I said you were out but would be back later.”
    â€œWhat did he look like?”
    â€œHoly moly, let me think. He was a little taller than me. He had a stocking cap on. I think it was brown. He must have been pretty normal looking, because I can’t think of a good way to describe him.”
    â€œBig nose? Small nose? Beard? No beard? Glasses? No glasses? Pale looking, or not so much?”
    â€œHe was a white guy, but he did not strike me as overly pale. I didn’t notice that his nose was overly big or especially small. No beard. Sorry.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it. He might have been someone I helped in the past who didn’t know my name. He should have asked Molly or Emmy if he was looking for something.”
    â€œMaybe he did and they had no clue how to help him. That’s why he asked Pinky,” Erin said.
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€”
    W ill Dalton, a man we had never met, knocked on the Curio Finds door. Mark let him in. Will literally burst into the room and filled the whole shop with his presence. And it wasn’t because of his size. He was around five-tenand on the slim side. He had a worn-out look that added years to his face. A youngish, petite redheaded woman crept in behind him.
    â€œWhat in the hell happened to my wife?” He seemed angry more than anything else. The way he said “my wife” sounded like she was his possession, not his partner in life like my mother was to my father.
    Pinky started to visibly twitch and shake. The man’s tone had clearly frightened her. Maybe she thought the murder weapon, poisoned coffee from her shop, would come back to haunt her in the form of a lawsuit or worse. That’s what popped into my head listening to the man, a well-known, powerful attorney who was demanding to know how his wife had died.
    I put my hand around Pinky’s waist for support, and we moved closer to the archway for a better view. I felt Erin’s shoulder touch the back of my arm as she settled into a spot behind me.
    Molly looked like she was sleeping. The display area of the shop was better lit than the bathroom, making it more obvious her face was indeed an unnatural shade of pinkish red.
    Will Dalton dropped to his knees by the gurney. It looked like he was about to dive headfirst into Molly’s stomach when Clint put a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, but we need to keep contamination to a minimum.”
    Will turned and stared at Clint. “What?”
    â€œThis is an official crime scene. Every one of us has any number of particles on our persons that we leave behind here and there. Until we get to the bottom of what caused your wife’s death, it’d be best if you didn’t add to the mix.”
    Will thought about that for a minute while he stared