Elaine Viets & Victoria Laurie, Nancy Martin, Denise Swanson - Drop-Dead Blonde (v5.0) (pdf) Unknown (audio ebook reader .txt) 📖

to do, but maybe Abel was a meddler, just like my sister. And perhaps, even though Cain had repeatedly told him to back off, Abel de- cided to stick his nose into his brother's business one to many times--thus deserving a good wallop on the noggin after all.

``Abby!'' I heard across the lobby.

``Speak of the devil,'' I muttered as I cocked an eyebrow in my sister's direction.

``Abby!'' she repeated, waving at me like a prom queen. ``Over here!'' I waved back with far less enthusiasm and mumbled, ``Seven, eight, nine, ten,'' under my breath.

Nope. No good. I still wanted to kill her. It didn't really matter that I was angrier with myself for being suckered when I should have known better; at the moment, I was too focused on giving my sister what-for. Squaring my shoulders, I grabbed my blue suitcase and duffle bag off the turnstile and began marching with purpose in her direction. Before I could get to her, however, I smacked right into a pair of bodacious ta-tas the size of cantaloupes.

``Excuse me!'' I said as my duffle bag bounced off the cleavage and off my shoulder to land on the floor.

``Watch where you're going!'' an angry voice snapped back at me.

251 252 Victoria Laurie

Quickly I grabbed my duffel and righted myself, red with embarrassment and wanting to make amends. But as I looked up at the owner of the cantaloupes, I nearly thought better of it.

The ta-tas belonged to exactly the kind of woman who makes my upper lip snarl in distaste. Her hair was blond, a shade of platinum one tint shy of albino, shoulder length, with bangs that bounced when she blinked her heavily mas- caraed eyelashes. She looked to be in her mid to late thir- ties, with enough collagen, Botox, and silicone pumped into her to make her the next Bionic Woman. Her face was square and angular, except for her lips, which puffed out unnaturally, probably due to a recent injection.

She towered over me by about four inches, but that could have been the red stilettos talking, and she was dressed in a skintight black minidress that showed off legs better kept hidden. The dress was also cut low enough in the front to give the cantaloupes plenty of sunlight--to ripen, I guess.

Snuggled between her cleavage was a huge crystal of the diamond variety, which, because of its gargantuan size, I could only assume was fake, but the Gucci bag on her arm and the mink coat around her shoulders were definitely real. Good thinking, I mused, bringing a full-length mink down to Florida. I mean, who knows when the next Ice Age is going to hit?

``I'm sorry,'' I said tightly as the woman stood over me, her hands on hips and those huge fishy lips puffed out in a frown.

``You need to look where you're going!'' she barked.

``Okay,'' I said, reining in my temper. There was only so much of this I was going to take. ``Again, I'm sorry about that.''

``Mother?'' a voice called from behind Fish Lips, ``are you all right?''

``I'm fine, Gerald,'' she said turning slightly so that I could see the man who had just walked up behind her.

My eyes widened as he came into view. I would never have guessed in a million years that these two were related. Gerald looked the same age, as if not older than, his mother. He was short, stocky and tubby around the middle. He had dark brown hair, a bulbous nose, and some sort of BLIND SIGHTED 253 bright red rash that was making its way along his arms, which were lightly smeared with white cream.

``Are you sure?'' he asked putting a concerned hand on her arm.

``Get away from me with that poison ivy!'' she spat at him, and instantly he retrieved his arm.

Ah, now I knew the source of the rash. ``Listen,'' I said to the two of them, ``I'm sorry I bumped into you.''

``Fine, now move along and get out of my way,'' she said testily.

Gee, no invite to spend the holidays together? Sheesh.

Just as I stepped out of the way to let her pass, however, I heard a buzz, buzz, buzz in the back of my mind. Oh, crap! I thought. You have got to be kidding!

``Uh,'' I stammered as she moved to step in front of me. ``Wait a second,'' I said quickly and thrust out my arm to bar her passage.

With a snarl she regarded me the way you might eye a mosquito right before smashing it into oblivion. ``What is it now?''

``Did you just come in from out West, like from Califor- nia or something?''

``Excuse me?'' she asked, looking at me oddly.

``Yes,'' Gerald said helpfully, ``we're from Burbank. Why?''

``Well, this is going to sound really weird to you, but there's something you need to know. You must get back on the plane immediately, and go back to Burbank. There's some sort of danger lurking here for you. I get the feeling that if you stay here in Tampa, there could be grave conse- quences--someone you know is about to betray you, and you really shouldn't be here.''

Fish Lips chuckled humorlessly and said, ``You have got to be kidding.''

``No,'' I insisted, ``I'm really not. I'm telling you that if you stay here you could be in real danger. Someone you know is waiting to stab you in the back and betray you if you're not careful, and--''

``Oh, don't tell me you're one of those,'' she said, folding her arms and smirking as if she were suddenly amused.

`` 'Those'?'' I repeated, still trying to sort out the message blipping through my head. 254 Victoria Laurie

``Psychics,'' she said, but the word sounded disturbingly more like psychos the way she said it.

``Uh, yes,'' I said hesitantly, ``yes, I am. My name is