Read No Way to Kill a Lady for Free Online Page B

rags. I have resources.”
    â€œOf course you do.”
    â€œIt’s just . . .”
    â€œYes?” I prompted.
    â€œWell, I have fond memories of the old girl. As stepmothers go, Madcap Maddy was colorful. I liked her.”
    â€œSo you want the estate?”
    â€œHell, yes, I want it.” Sutherland smiled. “Half of Madeleine’s wealth originated with my father, right? I’ll fight you tooth and nail for this house and what’s left of its contents. I’m not as young as I used to be. And I just learned a rock star’s Caribbean vacation home has come on the market. Maybe it’s time I settled down. In style, of course.”
    â€œAnd the lovey-­dovey routine? You thought you might romance me a little first to see if you can avoid an ugly lawsuit?”
    â€œWell,” he said with another attractive twinkle, “we Blackbirds often marry our cousins. For the right reasons.”
    â€œMoney, you mean?”
    â€œKeeping money in the family,” he replied, correcting me.
    â€œSo you’re proposing an alliance?”
    â€œLet’s not use the word propose just yet.” He flicked a lock of my hair with one fingertip. “I’m fond of you, Nora. You’re not nuts like Libby, and you don’t frighten me the way Emma does. Good Lord, now she’s going to spawn! But you—­you’re delightful. And I’m not entirely revolting, am I? We could settle a family dispute before it gets started, you and I. Think of all the lawyer fees we’d be saving if we shook hands right now.”
    â€œHow romantic.”
    â€œWhat do you say?”
    Before I could say anything, we heard a bloodcurdling scream from inside the house.

CHAPTER THREE
    W e found Libby in hysterics in front of the open elevator. She had collapsed to her knees, shaking with terror and weeping.
    I knelt, caught her around the shoulders and turned her away from the horror that lay on the elevator floor.
    â€œMy God,” Sutherland said above us.
    Emma skidded down the staircase and caught her balance on the open door of the elevator car. She cursed.
    â€œIt’s a person,” Libby cried, sobbing against my shoulder. “A dead person!”
    It might have been a person once, but what remained on the floor of the old elevator was little more than a pile of graying bones and mummified skin dressed in gauzy tatters of fabric. If the sight wasn’t already awful enough, the feeble light fixture at the top of the elevator flickered unsteadily, and the smell that wafted toward us was one I immediately thought must have greeted every archaeologist who ever set foot in an Egyptian tomb—­a combination of dust and must and a spine-­tingling horror.
    Libby babbled, “I went looking for the paintings in the dining room. They were gone, so I decided to go upstairs, to Madeleine’s room. I pushed the button. I heard the elevator come down to this floor. When the door opened—­I—­I—­”
    â€œIt’s okay, Lib,” I soothed.
    â€œWho is it?” She pointed a shaking finger at the bones on the floor of the elevator.
    â€œWe’ll find out,” I said.
    I didn’t feel so good myself just then. I was glad to be kneeling on the floor, but my head spun unsteadily. The bones lay in a neat line, but the skull had rolled sideways. The empty eye sockets stared at us, and the jaw hung open as if in a final shriek of agony.
    Libby was hyperventilating. “I wasn’t expecting—­I never imagined—­”
    â€œHush,” I said. “You’re okay.”
    She hiccoughed and tried to steady her heart with a hand pressed to her bosom.
    â€œWell,” Sutherland said, digging a handkerchief from his pocket. “This might explain why nobody was looking after the place.”
    â€œWhat d’you mean?” Emma asked.
    He daubed the handkerchief to his forehead.