Read Kiss of Death (The Briar Creek Vampires, #1) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse for Free Online

pleased
that she had asked for it, so maybe an excuse wasn’t too important
anyway. “He seemed nice enough,” Lexi lied.
    “He was asking about you, you know. He thinks
you’re cute.” Violet’s eyes danced up excitedly at Lexi.
    “He asked about me?” Lexi was taken aback.
She hadn’t sensed that he was attracted to her, but it also may
have explained his reaction to the possibility of her having a
friendship with Gabe. Maybe Dan told her to stay away from him
because he was just jealous. He might have even made up that story
about Gabe hurting an animal.
    Her mom, who had remained quiet until now,
cleared her throat. “Don’t get too attached, Lexi. We’ll be going
back home in a few days.”
    “I won’t. Oh, Aunt Violent, I just remembered
that Greg Lawrence stopped by today with a basket that his wife
made. He asked me to send his condolences. He seemed really
nice.”
    “Oh, Mayor Lawrence is a very nice man! He
was Austin’s football coach.”
    “He mentioned that he was his coach. He also
mentioned something about his daughter…Mary-Kate?” Lexi couldn’t
help but notice that Aunt Violet seemed troubled by her
question.
    Violet took a large gulp of her wine and
choked. Recovering she said “Oh. She’s had a crush on Austin for
years.” Violet gripped her glass so tightly Lexi thought it might
shatter into pieces in her bare hand. Setting the glass down, she
tentatively continued, “He never seemed to like her though – not
the way she wanted him to. Poor girl never let it go.”
    “I see. May I be excused?” Lexi asked. When
Violet and her mom both nodded, she got up to put her dishes in the
sink, mostly to conceal her worried expression. If Austin had never
liked Mary-Kate, why had she sent him that message, which could
easily be a sexual reference? Did he want to just be friends with
benefits? Lexi was starting to question whether they had even had a
relationship.
    Had Austin even been with Mary-Kate that
night? Or was she just stalking him? Whatever the message was
about, it sounded like something Austin didn’t want to do.
    Climbing up the stairs to her room and still
baffled by what she had just learned, Lexi decided that she had to
do some detective work. Maybe there would be something else on
Austin’s laptop or Facebook account that she had missed the first
time.
    Peeking down the hall to make sure that no
one was around, Lexi snuck into Austin’s room. She glanced at his
computer desk, which was now empty. Lexi’s heart skipped a beat.
She had put it back last night. Why wasn’t it there today?
    Aunt Violet or Uncle Tommy must have started
going through the rest of Austin’s stuff and moved it, Lexi
decided. Glancing around the room, she noticed that the photographs
were still hanging on the walls and Austin’s movie collection was
still in the same place. If her aunt and uncle had removed more of
Austin’s personal belongings, they sure had missed a lot.
    Sighing, Lexi looked around Austin’s room.
She wasn’t sure what she was searching for, but she knew that there
had to be something in the room that would tell her more about her
cousin than she already knew (which wasn’t very much). Opening his
desk drawers, she realized that Austin was a total neat freak –
there was a calculator, a few pens, a notepad, Extra gum, and a
pair of sunglasses. She looked under his bed and in his nightstand.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
    Lexi listened as someone clomped their way
upstairs. Instinctively, she turned off the light in Austin’s room
and jumped into his closet, swiftly closing the door behind her –
and was glad she did when she heard the bedroom door swing
open.
    The light was turned on and the person
hovered in the doorway, breathing heavily, leading Lexi to believe
that it was Uncle Tommy. She imagined that he must have come to
Austin’s room to remember him and try to deal with his pain. Lexi
felt uncomfortable, like she was intruding on a special