Free The Arrangement by Suzanne Forster

find her?”
    “Not yet. ” Marnie Hazelton had been everyone’s prime suspect back in February, but Tony wasn’t so sure now. He had another lead, but he still had every intention of hunting down Marnie. Last February, he’d paid a visit to Josephine Hazelton, the crazy old lady who’d raised Marnie. She sold vegetables and odds and ends at the flea market, and people seemed to like her, but Tony’s gut had told him she was holding back. So he and Gramma Jo would go another round as soon as he was settled in.
    After that, he had a social call to make on a cheating ex-girlfriend. That should be interesting. What Tony didn’t have was a solid motive for any of his suspects, except that his brother had been a classic bully who enjoyed harassing anyone weaker than he was, women as well as men.
    “You tell your dad I asked about him,” the clerk chirped. “You never said whether he was married or single.”
    “Single since my mother died over twenty years ago. He’s not the marrying kind.”
    “Well now, that don’t matter. Don’t need to be married to have a cup of coffee, as far as I know.”
    Tony nodded, trying to be polite, which was more than his dad would have been. Vernon had never cared about anything except riding hard on his two boys and fly-fishing on a river, any river. He wouldn’t have given this toothless floozie a second look, but then, he probably wouldn’t have given Pamela Anderson a second look. He wasn’t a big fan of the fairer sex. He thought women talked too much and did too little. “Whiny, conniving liars, all of them,” he was fond of saying.
    The clerk shut off the CD player. “I wonder if I knew your mother. She probably went to school with Vern and me.”
    “Mind your own fucking business.” Tony’s voice dropped to a whisper. He brought his fist down on the counter with enough force to knock over her empty coffee cup. “There is nothing you know or need to know about my mother.”
    The clerk’s eyes widened. She stepped back from the counter, eyeing the phone that she’d just distanced herself from. “I didn’t mean nothing. I was just being nice.”
    Tony flashed his agent’s badge. “You and I are going to be fine,” he told her. “Just make sure I get fresh sheets once a day. Fresh, not flipped—and don’t ever mention my mother again.”

5
    A lison was swishing with peppermint-flavored mouthwash when she heard a tap on the bathroom door.
    “Can you help me with this tie pin?” Andrew called to her.
    She gurgled for him to wait as she spat out the stream of blue, then blotted her mouth on a towel. With nothing on but panties, she grabbed her dress off the hanger on the door. A bra wasn’t possible because of the halter-top cut of the gown, but at least it should be quick and easy to slip into.
    “Did you say something?” He knocked again.
    Before she could answer, the door opened, and there he was, forcing her to turn away and quickly shimmy into her dress. She pulled the material up and tied the jeweled halter strings. No time to do up the back.
    “What do you need?” she asked, tugging various things into place as she turned around.
    He seemed amused at the speed with which she was moving, twisting and tying. “Can I help?” he asked.
    “It would help if you’d respect my privacy.”
    “I thought you said to come in.”
    She heaved a sigh. “Just tell me what you want. I need to finish getting ready.”
    “This.” He pointed to the onyx tie bar that hung lopsided on the diagonal pinstripes of his tan-and-white tie. “I’m going cross-eyed trying to get it straight.”
    “You don’t look cross-eyed.” She gave herself a moment to look into his eyes and wonder about the soul that resided in those dark windows.
    “Did I buy this tie for you?” she asked him.
    “No, it was a gift, but not from you.”
    “Good,” she murmured, “otherwise, I would have been questioning my taste.”
    “What’s wrong with my tie?”
    She stepped back,