Read Hide and Snoop (The Odelia Grey Mysteries) for Free Online Page B

a disgusting, half-chewed spear of fried chicken. She’d been tapping me on the arm with it, leaving greasy spots on the sleeve of my blouse. I wanted to scream but held my tongue. I took the gummy crap from her hands and started wiping them with a napkin. With her free hand, Lily pointed to one of the animals she’d been coloring.
    “Squirrel,” she said, her little digit jabbing at a rodent of some kind. I looked closer. It was indeed a squirrel, or maybe a chipmunk.
    “That’s right, Lily. Squirrel. What a smart girl.”
    She pointed her finger at me. “Squirrel.”
    Steele laughed.
    “No, Lily,” I told her with a smile. I pointed at myself. “Odelia.” Then I pointed at her art project. “That’s a squirrel.”
    She shook her head with determination, setting her blond curls to wiggling. “No,” she insisted, pointing at me. “You squirrel. Cheesehead squirrel.” She squealed with delight.
    Steele laughed again, this time with more gusto. I looked at him, my mind a blank. “How did she come up with that?” He only smirked in response.
    I pointed at Steele. “He’s a cheesehead squirrel. I’m Odelia.”
    “Nooooooo,” Lily insisted. She jabbed her pudgy finger into one of the grease stains on my sleeve with great accuracy. “You cheesehead squirrel.”
    “Gotta admit, Grey,” Steele said with amusement. “It’s better than being called Corpse Magnet.”
    “Humph, I’m not so sure about that.” I reached over and wiped Lily’s nose with a napkin.
    When I was done, Lily picked up an apple slice and bit into it. She munched with glee, her head bobbing in time to some imagined tune. The child was definitely musical. Between chews, she mumbled a ditty about a cheesehead squirrel.
    Steele dissolved into full-blown hysterics. “Oh my God, this is so much better than a stuffy lunch at Morton’s.”
    I tossed him my best scowl. “So glad you’re amused. Were you about to tell me something else? You know, like the real reason you asked me to lunch?”
    Steele took a drink of tea to compose himself. “Yes, there was something else.” He paused. Except for Lily’s babble about a squirrel with a cheese problem, the table was quiet.
    “There’s no easy way to put this, Grey.” He paused for effect. “Get ready to be fired.”
    “You’re too late with that, Steele.”
    He seemed surprised by my lack of surprise. “You mean you’ve already been fired?”
    “No, but the bloodletting has already begun. So far, Hope and Kelsey have been let go. And Erica is making it easy for management to pick me off along with the others.”
    I fingered Lily’s hair while she colored, and pondered the darkness overtaking Woobie. “Did your friend tell you specifically my head was on the chopping block?”
    He nodded but said nothing.
    “Erica has disliked me from day one,” I told him, “and I’m not sure why, except that she brought her own paralegal with her and wants to protect him.”
    “Makes sense,” he said, giving me a small, pained look. “I tried to protect you when I left. I asked you to come along with me.”
    Anger bubbled up in me like prehistoric tar. “You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you, Steele?”
    “What?”
    “The merger,” I accused. “These things don’t happen overnight, and you were an equity partner. You knew Woobie was going to merge with Hamlin-Hawke before you left.”
    “Not exactly. I knew there were negotiations in place. It was one of the reasons I left. I’ve never liked the people at Hamlin-Hawke, so when the T and T opportunity arose, I saw it as both a viable way out and a good way to expand my career.”
    “Why didn’t you warn me, dammit?” As soon as the swear word was out of my mouth, I regretted it. I looked down at Lily, then sighed with relief. She was totally engrossed in talking to the animals on her place mat. One was a skunk. On the bright side, I could have been dubbed cheesehead skunk instead of cheesehead squirrel.
    “I’m