Harley Rushes In (Book 2 of the Blue Suede Mysteries) by Virginia Brown Page B

not crazy. We’re definitely on for a late dinner in bed.” Reaching out, he snagged her arm, pulled her against his hard chest, and bent his head, kissing her until little lights exploded behind her eyes and she forgot they were in the middle of a crime scene. Then he let her go, grinning when she breathed a long sigh and stood unsteadily for a moment. “Your place. I’ll be waiting on you.”
    Still groping for equilibrium, she said, “Yeah. Later.”
    “I’ll bring dinner. No, not Taco Bell. Branch out. Try new things.”
    She blinked, but the protest went unuttered. He was already walking away anyway. Wow. The man curled her toes.
    The screech that split the air curled her hair.
    Jerking around, she stared at the woman still fighting the police to get a glimpse of Harry Gordon. Dark hair that frizzed into some kind of curly mess flopped in her face so that Harley couldn’t get a good look at her, but she definitely made herself heard.
    “Harry can’t be dead, I just talked to him,” the woman screamed, and Harley saw that the officers had finally gotten her to stand up instead of sag between them, though they still had to support her. She seemed so genuinely distressed that Harley knew Harry Gordon had to be more to her than a fellow employee. The woman’s shrieks were so loud she had no trouble hearing her, even across fifty feet of parking lot illuminated by strobe lights and security lamps.
    “Ma’am,” one of the cops said to the woman, and Harley thought she recognized Officer Delisi, who had questioned her just last week after Mrs. Trumble’s death. “You need to calm down. If you want to help us, you’ve got to answer some questions. Did you know the deceased well?”
    Nodding and shuddering, the brunette indicated her willingness to comply, but she looked up at them through her lashes, a swift assessing glance that caught Harley off-guard. It was so—so calculated. Hm. Maybe she wasn’t as grieving as she seemed. Had the officers even noticed?
    “Sha-ree Saw-say,” she said when asked her name, then spelled it “ Cheríe Saucier .” Harley thought it sounded like a topless dancer’s stage name. Still, the petite brunette wore clothes no dancer would wear, an expensive line Harley recognized from shopping with Tootsie. The simple lines of the pantsuit were elegant, Dolce & Gabbana at odds with her K-Mart navy pumps.
    If there was one thing she’d learned from Grandmother Eaton, it was that a true lady paid scrupulous attention to her footwear, even if she couldn’t afford expensive clothing. Still, this was the twenty-first century, not the era Grandmother Eaton obviously preferred. Etiquette rules of the past no longer applied. Even the ironclad rule about not wearing white before Easter and after Labor Day had been abused in the past few years. Yet her adolescent lessons were difficult to ignore, so Harley regarded the woman curiously as she walked to where the woman and officers stood.
    It was no surprise to hear her say she worked closely with Harry Gordon, that he’d hired her as a designer and consultant. This was the woman Aunt Darcy disliked so intensely and had called a “wretched woman.” She could see how they’d clash. Darcy Fontaine could spot a female fraud a mile away and had no doubt pegged Cheríe Saucier the moment she’d laid eyes on her. Oh yeah, she was willing to bet there had been some interesting fireworks a time or two.
    Which reminded her—why had Aunt Darcy returned to the store? And what had she really meant when she’d said, “I’ll take care of Harry”? No. Not Aunt Darcy. She might be a ruthless pest and one of those annoyingly determined women, but she wasn’t a murderer. It’d be too untidy. Besides, Harry had been impaled on a horn, and it took strength to do that. The heaviest thing Aunt Darcy lifted was a bottle of gin.
    Well, Saturday was lunch at Grandmother Eaton’s, and she intended to ask her aunt some of those questions.
    “You need