G'Day to Die: A Passport to Peril Mystery - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,71
are all the rage, and with her bunions gone, she can wear them hot shoes that drive men wild.”
I smiled indulgently. “I’m not worried.” I glanced in the wall mirror and screamed at the spike-haired freak who stared back. Ehh! That couldn’t be me.
I ran to the sink and yanked on my hair.
It was me! Okay, now I was worried. “I can’t go out looking like this!”
“Hollywood celebrities do all the time,” said Tilly. “They think they’re glam.”
“Hollywood celebrities don’t look like Bride of Chucky!”
Nana held up her bloomers. “I bet you could twist these into a real nice turban, dear. I got safety pins.”
A knock on the outer door. “Ladies, I have to ask you to shake a leg. The buses are about to leave.”
Panic filled Nana’s eyes. She tossed me her bloomers and hit the door a half step ahead of Tilly. “See you out there, dear.”
I looked in the mirror again, realized the hopelessness of the situation, then turned on the water full force and stuck my head under the faucet. When your short, sassy, Italian hairdo was having an off day, there was only one solution: improvise.
The buses were still loading when I ran out to the parking lot. Henry flagged me down and took me aside. “The excitement’s over, Imily. Thanks for keeping mum. I’ll make an announcement about Diana, but I’m going to wait until we’re all togither at the airport this evening so everyone will git the news at the same time. You wouldn’t believe how put out some blokes git whin they think they haven’t received news first.”
“What did the police tell you about her?”
“Nothing, other than she’d be traveling back to the mainland with thim, and they’d arrange for her bags to be picked up at the hotel.”
“That’s it? They didn’t tell you what she’s being charged with?”
“Are they supposed to? I thought they were being very informative tilling me what they did.”
“You didn’t hear them say something like, ‘Book her, Dano, murder one?’”
“Murder! Diana killed someone?”
“I think she killed two someones. Claire Bellows and Nora Acres.”
“Codswallop.” He blinked numbly. “I’ve been in this business for eighteen years, and niveh once had dealings with the police. Bloody hill, if she’s a killer, they should have grabbed her a hill of a lot sooner!”
“I guess it took them a while to travel from Melbourne.”
“Milbourne?” He released his cell phone. “This is Hinry. You could have told me the police were traveling from Milbourne. I had a killer on my hands! What if—”
Click.
He stared at the phone. “A killer on my tour. This really takes the air out of my tires.”
I patted his arm. “It always does the first time.”
When a bus horn tooted, Henry straightened his cap and escorted me briskly across the lot. “There’s been some shuffling of passengers between buses because of that Zwerg woman, so I’m afraid you might have lost your seat on the first bus. Lit me chick.”
Nana pressed her nose against her window and waved as I waited. Henry returned in moments. “They’re full up. Looks like you’ll have to ride bus number two with me.”
“I’m easy.” With Diana Squires in custody and the other guests no longer in jeopardy, I didn’t care where I sat or with whom.
Duncan nabbed me as I climbed the stairs. “Gotcha now.” He took my hand. “The backseat has our name on it.”
“But—”
Etienne occupied the front seat with Bernice, who was snugged into a silver survival blanket like a stick of gum in its wrapper, her head resting on his shoulder.
“Harold and I weren’t married many years before he passed on, so I’m practically a virgin,” she said. “And in the best shape of my life. Did I happen to mention that I’m an Olympic sprinter?”
The muscle in Etienne’s jaw twitched as I passed. Poor guy. He was too new at this to know about the benefits of earplugs.
We arrived at the back and sat down behind Jake and Lola, which would have creeped me out an hour ago, but with our killer in custody, Jake and his bugs no longer seemed so scary. Nothing in the world seemed scary anymore!
I exhaled a relieved breath, feeling as if a tremendous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The situation had resolved itself almost too quietly. I guess I’d gotten too used to fire alarms, police sirens, guns, mace, and chokeholds. Having someone else take down the bad guy felt a little anticlimactic, but I welcomed the change. Now maybe I