Read The Sugar Queen for Free Online Page A

did when they made love.
    He stopped and fell away from her.
    And that's when he told her.
    There was only her. There's only you, Chloe.
    He made a mistake. He hadn't meant for it to happen.
    It was just one time, he'd said. Three months ago. The office had been celebrating after winning the Beasley murder case. Everyone had committed so much time to it and there had been all this stress, all these emotions needing a release, and before he knew it he'd done it.
    He loved Chloe, not the other woman.
    He begged her forgiveness, telling her he'd do anything to make this right. Anything, it seemed, but tell her the name of the woman he'd slept with.
    Chloe sat on the floor in front of the refrigerator and stared into space until the phone rang. The voice that came over the machine was Hank's, one of the security guards at the courthouse, wondering where she was.
    She got up, got dressed and went to the door. The book was sitting on the console by the door. She frowned at it as she left.
    It was on the passenger seat of her car when she got in.
    It was lying on the counter by the cash register when she lifted the security gate to the shop.

    Downtown was busy that afternoon. Josey had forgotten that preparations had begun for the three-day Bald Is Beautiful festival, which was held every year to kick off the ski season. There was always live music and beer to attract college kids, and a famous bald-head contest the first night that received a lot of media attention. The festival had been Marco's idea. Josey used to go to the festival with him when she was young, but it had been almost twenty years since she'd last attended. After Marco died, the town invited Margaret and Josey to the festival as guests of honor, but Margaret always refused, and the invitations eventually stopped. They were poor substitutes for the charismatic man who had once ruled the mountain, anyway.
    Because of the preparations, it took Josey longer than she thought it would to get to the courthouse downtown and find a place to park. She finally found a parking space big enough for Lola the Large Cadillac, then, when she entered the courthouse, she set off the metal detector twice. When the security guards finally waved her on, she walked across the cavernous pink marble rotunda that smelled of grease from the old elevators and went to the small shop Della Lee had told her about. It looked like a newsstand from a distance, with shelves of magazines and newspapers and paperback books, but as she got closer she noticed there was a sandwich counter and two small cafe tables.
    There wasn't anyone there when she approached.
    She looked around and checked her watch anxiously.
    Suddenly she heard from the back room behind the counter, "Would you please go away? I don't need you!"
    "Excuse me?" Josey said, surprised.
    A young woman with the most beautiful hair Josey had ever seen popped her head out of the doorway. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said as she walked all the way out of the room. "I didn't know anyone was out here. Can I help you?"
    Her color was high and her brown eyes were shining. Her gorgeous red hair was a thick mass of curls that fell down her back. She looked like a painting, fragile, caught in a moment she couldn't get out of. "Are you all right?" Josey automatically asked.
    The woman's smile didn't quite meet her eyes. "I'm fine, thanks. What can I get for you?"
    "A grilled tomato and cheese sandwich to go, please."
    "Coming up," the woman said, and turned around to the
    grill.
    Josey sat at one of the small cafe tables. She kept checking her watch. She had just sneaked out of her mother's ladies' club meeting. She had about twenty minutes by her estimation, twenty minutes to get back to Mrs. Herzog's drawing room before the meeting ended. Josey wasn't a member of the group, and she always stood off to the side with the nurses and paid companions of some of the older ladies. Not even they paid any attention when she slipped out. The only person who seemed