Read Bonbons and Betrayal: Book 3 in The Chocolate Cafe Series for Free Online Page A

recovery time, waiting for the two of them, burbling deep in there.
     
    “No one.” Brie hissed, “NO one has ever left me in the middle of the night. No one…” Her voice grew thick again with emotion. “No one has ever made me wait like this. I need to know…”
     
    Mac moved past the hedgerows that functioned as barriers between the office patios. Now that she was closer, Mac could see the tears on Brie’s cheeks.
     
    “You’re right,” Mac said, now close enough to whisper. “You need to know….” Despite the obvious misery that Brie was feeling, Mac thought she detected an amount of gratitude. Brie turned to try the sliding glass door to see if it was locked.
     
    It wasn’t.
     
    The door slid open easily, noiselessly scooting along its path…allowing the girls full access to what lay behind it.
     
    Her hand on the door, the thick black behind her, Brie turned to Mac.
     
    “Are you…”
     
    “Nope.” Mac stopped her before she could continue, holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “It’s all yours. I’ll be here for the getaway…should need the need arise.”
     
    “I love you,” Brie said, hastily embracing Mac. The next second she was gone, swallowed up into the darkness that was Paul Creed’s office.
     
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    First the light came on. Then the screams began. Every inch of Mac’s flesh seemed to sizzle with adrenaline. Emerging from the darkness behind the mild, suburban-style sliding glass door, Mac could hear the worst noise imaginable. The sound of her best friend’s heart being ripped to pieces.
     
    Without a moments pause, Mac ran into the darkness. As soon as she entered the room she was immediately blind. Unable to distinguish anything, all she could make out was Brie’s choking sobs and a tiny sliver of light hovering above the floor a few feet off.
     
    “Sabrina…” Mac shouted, her own voice shaky and unimpressive in the humid darkness. Even though it was spring, the apartment was dank with trapped heat.
     
    She stumbled toward the yellow slash that indicated a doorway. Still shaking with every shriek Brie made, she managed to open the door.
     
    The first thing Mac saw was Sabrina’s back. Still dressed in a heavy knit cardigan thrown over her pajamas, Brie was stooped with horror. Her body shook with sobs, too appalled by whatever was in front of her to even notice Mac’s loud entrance.
     
    “Brie…what….” Mac rushed to her side to take her into her arms but stopped.
     
    It was all she could do to stop her own scream from joining Sabrina’s almost constant shrieks of loss.
     
    Face down on the desk, Paul Creed’s body was doing its best to spread as much blood around his office as it could.
     
    Although his face was buried in the mass of papers on his desk, the part of his head that was visible was as lurid, moist and appalling as a squirrel lying dead by the side of the road.
     
    Everything was crimson. But not one shade, as one would expect…but a variety of tones. From the dried, darker shade to the parts that…god knows how many hours later, were still glistening in the light from his desk lamp.
    His hands were spread out on either side of him, large fingered and absolutely useless. His struggle had ended.
     
    “Sabrina. Here…no…”. What was she saying? None of it made much sense. No? No what? No, don’t look at the dead body of your lover? No, don’t get used to what must have been the third of such crimes the two of them had stumbled across in the last half year? Trouble had its eye on the two of them, that was for sure.
     
    Sabrina was frozen, her hands to her mouth. Her face was mottled pink and deadly white…her eyes blank with horror. Despite Mac’s insistence, she continued to stare…
     
    Mac grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her toward her. It was difficult. Her strong body was stiff and it took Mac forcibly turning her head to face her to make eye contact. Brie was gasping for air, her