Page 44 of Deadly Evidence
“Hi, there. I brought you lunch!”
He rolled his head against the pillow to look at her, then turned away and closed his eyes.
Glancing down at the food she’d prepared, she curbed her impatience and marched to the other side of the bed. “Let me crank up the head of the bed for you,” she said breezily. “I made you anicelunch.”
“No.”
He didn’t even open his eyes, which was certainly rude, and from what she’d heard, he didn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive.
Maybe Vicente was on the loose again, but this was one guy who could use her help. “You don’t think it’s a nice lunch?” she demanded. “Look!”
His eyes opened just a crack. “Go away.”
“Nope.” She pulled up a chair to the side of his bed. “If you don’t want to eat, I can at least tell you stories.”
When he didn’t answer, she tapped a forefinger against her lips and dredged up her most outrageous imitation Southern accent.
“You know, you just wouldn’t believe it, but my friend Marcy Burton—you know, of the Burton’s grocery store chain out in Pennsylvania? Well, you just wouldn’t believe what she did this last spring.”
“Not interested.”
“I saw the cutest little red skirt in a display at Bloomingdale’s—exactly the right color for my kicky new sandals—so I put it on layaway. Ten percent down, the rest in six months. And I found just the right sweater, too—midriff long. Cute little heart buttons.”
He huffed impatiently.
“Well, I told her about howthrilledI was. She went right out and bought thevery same thing. Only she paid for it right then, because she gets to use her mother’s credit card, and then sheworeit to school. Three times! And everyone said howcuteit was, so they would all remember it.”
Jonah rolled his eyes.
“—so if I wore my outfit they’d think I was trying to copy her. Can you believe that? I mean,really.”
He glared at her.
Encouraged, she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling as if deep in thought. “Of course, now we’re going off to different schools, so I guess it doesn’t matter. But I justknowthat someday I’m going to be wearing that outfit somewhere in town, and Marcy will be there in hers, and she’ll say, ‘Well, Mia—how cute that you decided to get an outfitjust like mine.’
“Now my friend Hollis—she’s a girl—would never think of embarrassing her friends like that. She’s got class, you know? Why, one day we were shopping together, and I didn’t have enough cash, and when I saw a pretty little purse with all sorts of beads dangling from the bottom and the sweetest smiley face design on the front, she loaned me the money. Of course, I gave back her money that same week, but she never went back and got one like it, even though she—”
“Enough!” Jonah roared. “Get out!”
“But I brought you lunch.”
“You’refired!”
“Can’t be,” she said primly. “I volunteered.”
“Why in the world did you do that?” he growled.
She grinned at him. “Because you’re such a charming guy. Ready for lunch?”
He sat partway up, then fell back against the pillow. “No!”
“It’s so sad,” she murmured. “We had a neighbor once—a nice old guy. But there was something wrong with him. Not like it would kill him or anything, but he just totally gave up. Can you believe it? He sat around and moped and wouldn’t go out, and he didn’t eat.
“One day the landlady let herself into the apartment to check on him, because he hadn’t paid rent for like two whole months, and she found him dead. Shriveled up and dry. The weird thing was that he wouldn’t have died from the disease he had—he died because he just gave up. What a waste.”
“Well, there’s the difference because Iwilldie. So take that tray and get out of here.”
She found her most imperious tone. “Iarrangedyour green beans!”
