Free Murder of a Chocolate-Covered Cherry by Denise Swanson Page A

mention it, since it was sort of a last-minute deal.”
    The muscle under Skye’s right eye twitched, but she kept her cool. She reminded herself that Frannie had just been trying to keep things calm until she could talk to an adult she trusted. She wasn’t really trying to cover up a crime. “I don’t suppose Xenia’s blog said where she was keeping her victim or anything useful like that?”
    “Not that we could tell.” Justin dug in his jeans pocket, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, and thrust it into Skye’s hand. “Here. I printed out the post for you.”
    “Thanks.” Skye smoothed out the sheet and, with Bunnypeering over her shoulder, read;
Crybabies should b careful. If u can’t stand the heat, u need 2 b kooled off. Kept on ice. Get my drift?
    Skye felt even worse after reading the brief message. “Sounds like she was planning on stashing Ashley in a freezer somewhere.”
    “We thought of that,” Frannie said, “but where is there a freezer big enough to hold a person, where no one would notice that a frozen cheerleader had been added to their inventory?”
    “I don’t know.” Skye started toward the door again. “But I do know we need to talk to the police.”
    After extracting a promise from Bunny not to tell anyone about the Xenia/Ashley situation, Skye sent her runner home. Skye didn’t like the glint in Bunny’s eye as she hurried out the door, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.
    Next, she found her godfather talking to a petite brunette half his age. At six feet tall, he towered over the woman. They were deep in conversation when Skye interrupted to tell him that Frannie and Justin were driving her home. He acknowledged her with a muttered, “Great,” but his gaze never left the woman’s face, and before Skye could add anything, he whispered something in the lady’s ear that made her giggle and pat his arm.
    Having taken care of Bunny and Charlie, Skye led Justin and Frannie out to the parking lot and borrowed Justin’s cell phone—one of the few that mysteriously seemed to work anywhere in Scumble River. “Thea? This is Skye.”
    “Hi, honey. How’s the cooking contest going? Your mom is so proud that you and Vince are in it with her.” Thea Jones was one of the dispatchers who worked with May.
    Thea was a grandmotherly type who knew everyone in town, and Skye acknowledged that there was no way to cut through the social chitchat if she wanted to keep Ashley’s disappearance quiet, so she summarized the day’s events, ending with, “We just finished, and I’m heading home to change for the dinner, but I wanted to ask Wally something first. Is he around?”
    “Sorry, sweetie. He’s not here right now. He’s probably at home getting ready for your big dinner party.”
    “Thanks. I’ll try him there. Bye.” Skye hit the END button before Thea could ask any more questions, grateful she hadn’t had to go through the whole “how are you, how’s your family, isn’t the weather nice” ritual.
    While she dialed Wally’s home number, Skye said to Frannie, “Start driving toward town.”
    From the seat of Frannie’s father’s pickup truck, Skye watched the trees sweeping by as her call went through. When she got Wally’s answering machine she tried his cell phone, but he didn’t answer that either. She left another urgent message, checked her watch, then said to Frannie, “Head toward my house. He’s supposed to pick me up there at quarter to seven, and it’s already six thirty.”
    Justin and Frannie were strangely quiet as they drove. Skye considered questioning them to try to gather additional information about Xenia, but decided to see what Wally thought before she did anything more.
    It was only a few minutes to the old Griggs place, which Skye had inherited that past summer. The house was a little isolated, and a lot rundown, but Skye had felt an immediate connection with Alma Griggs, and had been touched when the elderly woman’s will revealed