Read Drowning in Amber (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 2) for Free Online

of me.
    “Mom,” Eddie gasped. “Make her stop.”
    A swirl of ice cold hit me as he staggered up to the door and into me. He started screaming again, and for a few horrifying seconds, I was caught inside him and could feel all his fear, and self-loathing, and sickness. And something else. Something that instantly ate away my stomach, but made me ache with hunger at the same time.
    I couldn’t take it anymore, and flailed my way out of him, then stood, gasping for air.
    “Is there something wrong with you, girl?” Bea asked, as Eddie disappeared back inside the house.
    “No,” I said shortly, as I waited for my eyesight to clear.
    I couldn’t exactly call out to Eddie to get him to come back and talk to me, ghost to living, but I had to give him a way to find me.
    “Give this to Mrs. Hansen,” I said, holding the business card out to Bea. “And ask her to call me.”
    She didn’t answer me. Just took the card between two fingers, as though it was covered with dirt or something. Then she sneered and slammed the door.
    “Well,” I muttered. “That could have gone better.”
    Truer words, and all that. I crept back to the Volvo, and with one last look at the front of that house, I drove away.
    No wonder Eddie did drugs. With people like that around, how could he have done anything but?
    I was pretty sure he was wrong about that bunch of women having anything to do with his death, but I knew that if I didn’t prove to him that they weren’t involved, he’d never get off that tack. And he needed to, if he was going to be able to help me find out who really killed him.
    I needed to talk to him again, but not in that house. I hoped that he’d see the business card and the address on the front.
    “Please, Eddie,” I muttered, as I white-knuckled it back to James’s office. “Please come to me, so we can talk. For real, this time.”
     

Eddie:
I Gotta Remember That Address
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    HERE’S THE ONLY cool thing that happened in a day otherwise filled to the brim with warm shit. Queen Bea gave my mother the business card from that crazy girl. Marie. Marie Jenner, from the Jimmy Lavall Detective Agency.
    I stared at the card, attempting to commit the address to a memory that was notoriously bad. Hoped I’d hang onto it as Mom scooped up the card and stared at it, hard.
    “What do you think I should do about this?” she asked the cackling old crows. They all thought about it for a minute, then told her to let it go.
    “You have enough on your plate right now, dear,” Bea said. “You don’t need to deal with anything more. Don’t you think so, girls?”
    The “girls” all agreed, so enthusiastically I thought I’d puke.
    And then that old bitch plucked the business card from my mom’s hand and dropped it in her huge purse. “Why don’t you let me deal with little Mary Jenner?”
    “All right,” Mom whispered, and my heart wrenched. She sounded so hurt. So lost. And it was my fault. I couldn’t stay there and see that look on her face. Not for one more moment.
    As I left my mother’s house, I heard Mom thank them for all their help and for being such good and loyal friends.
    Yeah, Mom. You got some great friends there , I thought.
    Then everything went grey, and I guess I lost it again because when I came to, I was back at the tree where I’d been crucified.
    This must be what hell is like.
     

Marie:
James Wasn’t Going to Be Happy
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    I DROVE BACK to the office with no problem at all, even though I was in a particularly foul mood.
    I’d found Brown Eddie, but hadn’t been able to convince him to give me any useful information about the people who killed him. All he’d done was blame his mother’s book club.
    I mean, really. A book club?
    I realized I’d probably have to go back to that horrible tree if I wanted to talk to him again, because it looked like he was ping-ponging back and forth between those two places. I shuddered, hating