Read Wilmington, NC 05 - Murder On The ICW for Free Online Page B

have Walt and Cam. But you, you'll need me. I'll be right there. Don't go inside until I arrive. I'm taking care of you."
    Dear, sweet Jon. What would I ever do without him? Then I realized that I didn't have to ever be without him. Nick, for all the pain he was causing me, was setting me free. Free to find the love I needed.
    Hurry, Jon, I whispered to myself after we ended our call.

6

    "I want to know exactly what happened," I told Melanie. "Tell me everything and no embellishments, please."
    It was late Friday afternoon and we were in the master bedroom of Melanie's comfortable ranch house on Sandpiper Cove. She was in bed, resting from her ordeal.
    And fuming. "When I get through with the judicial system in this town, they will be sorry they ever heard the name Melanie Wilkes," she declared. "Can you imagine? Holding me in lock-up over night! If Daddy were alive, they'd never treat me this way. He'd have their heads. I am boiling over with rage at this miscarriage of justice! While they are fixated on me, the real killer is out there, walking around, getting away with murder!"
    Melanie's arrest on Thursday and her arraignment early Friday morning had the TV journalists quivering with excitement. The Star-News had devoted a double spread to the murder of Joey Fielding and Melanie's subsequent arrest for that murder while news of the skeleton we'd unearthed at the hunting lodge was buried on a back page. On TV the talking heads were going on and on about Joey Fielding's star status when he'd acted on the popular, long-running Dolphin's Cove hit television series.
    "And let's not forget I've lost Joey," Melanie wailed. "That gorgeous, sexy hunk of a man is dead! What a waste."
    "But why do the police think you killed him, is what I want to know," I said.
    Melanie let out a groan and plopped back on the pillows. The ice pack she'd been holding to her forehead slipped down onto the satin coverlet.
    "Because they're all idiots!" she exclaimed. "That's why."
    "Okay, start at the beginning and tell me what happened."
    But Melanie was not through venting. "You can't imagine how disgusting that jail cell was. Talk about dirty. And no privacy. Oh, someone is going to pay for doing this to me."
    "Why don't I get you a glass of wine," I suggested. "Maybe that will help you to relax."
    "There's a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio in the wine cooler," she replied, accepting my suggestion.
    I left her adjusting the straps on her silk nightgown. "Ashley," she called after me, " bring the whole bottle. It's going to be one of those nights."
    Crossing Melanie's serene living room-dining room, done in pale taupes and ivories with soft touches of peach and aqua, I recalled happier days. How we'd decorated these rooms together right after Melanie purchased the house the first summer I was home from New York and Parsons School of Design. We'd had so much fun shopping for the wonderful art deco pieces that blended marvelously with the fat Thirties-style Tuxedo sofas and club chairs. And we'd hung the filmy linen panels that fell in deep folds across the sliding glass doors that led to the terrace.
    Over the fireplace an oil painting of a sunset at Wrightsville Beach was prominently displayed, a gift from Cameron Jordan when he and Melanie had been dating. The painting was executed in brilliant colors. In it, the sky was layered in bold reds and pinks. The sun was setting in the west just outside the frame, shooting rods of flame across the sand dunes. Surprisingly the striking hot colors of the painting complimented the austere coolness of the room.
    Melanie was meticulous about her surroundings, so particular that her environment be beautiful and arranged just so. How dreadful it must have been for her to be held in a jail cell over night . But Melanie, for all her prissiness, is incredibly strong. She had made it through the ordeal with her confidence intact, in fact she was feistier than ever, determined to make somebody pay for accusing her