Page 54 of Too Good to Be True

“It’s not the room, Ian. It’s worry about my sister. And sure, yes, this place and all that happened in it doesn’t help. It’s sneaking into my subconscious. No surprise.”

He stopped abruptly, stopping me with him. “No more stories of murdered women.”

I felt my eyes get big and pointed in his face.

“There!” I crowed triumphantly. “You think she was murdered.”

“Christ,” he muttered, continuing to prowl and dragging me with him.

“Admit it, you think she was murdered. It was no accident. So now you have to tell me who you think dunnit.”

“No talk of Dorothy Clifton until you get a full night’s sleep.”

“No fair.”

He stopped us again at the top of the stairs. “I’ll tell you more if you let me help you sleep.”

“And how would you do that?” I asked, though I figured I knew the answer.

“First of all, you wouldn’t be in bed in the Carnation Room.”

“Dearie me, Lord Alcott,”—I fluttered my eyes—“are you suggesting something untoward?”

“By untoward, if you mean fucking you until you’re exhausted, yes. That’s what I’m suggesting.”

Take two with my eyes getting big.

“Yeesh, babe, you should try being honest once in a while,” I teased. “All this roundabout talk is exhausting.”

He tugged me down the stairs, saying, “You’re cute when you’re being a pain in the ass.”

We hit the kitchen and Bonnie, at work at a bowl, and Harriet, sitting on a stool, eating some toast, immediately smiled at us.

What a difference a day, and a decent guy treating them like humans, makes.

Ian immediately spoke.

To Harriet.

“Louella is being moved to the Poppy Room and Daphne to the Rose Room.”

For some reason, Bonnie gasped at this news.

“Oh, thank God. That Carnation Room gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Harriet said.

“Hang on, Lou is going to the Iris Room. We decided. She loves irises,” I reminded Ian.

“The Poppy Room is next to the Rose Room,” he reminded me.

“They don’t have to move me.”

“You’re moving.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re moving.”

“Am not.”

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