Deadly Greetings (Book 2 in the Cardmaking Mysteries) by Tim Myers

“Shane here.”
    “ Bradford, Wayne Davidson
just accosted me on my doorstep, and he’s been drinking again. He
was close enough for me to smell it on his breath.”
    My brother isn’t prone to foul language, but
he ripped a few choice words off at that news. “I’ll take are of
it. Are you okay?”
    “ One of my neighbors stepped
in before I had to defend myself, but just barely. He’s a real
menace. Bradford, you can’t keep covering for him.”
    There was a long pause, then my brother
said, “Okay, you’re right. I’ve had a blind spot about him for a
while. We had a talk today, and I told him if he came within a half
mile of you, I was going to fire him.”
    “ So are you?” I asked. “Or
do I have to go over our head and make a formal complaint to the
state police?”
    “ He’s gone, Jennifer, as
soon as I can find him. You might not want to go back to your
apartment just yet. Why don’t you wait there and I’ll send Jim
over?”
    Barrett glanced over at me, and I held up
one finger. “That’s not necessary. I’m having pizza with my new
neighbor. Find him before he hurts someone, Bradford.”
    “ I will,” he said, then hung
up.
    Barrett asked, “Is everything all
right?”
    “ It will be, thanks. Are you
ready to eat?”
    “ Absolutely,” he said. As
Barrett led me into his dining area, I got my first good look at
his apartment. It was furnished beautifully, with elegant Queen
Anne furniture and lush rugs throughout. The art on the walls was
magnificent as well. I’d felt that my apartment was well furnished,
but compared to his place, it suddenly felt like the attic it
was.
    “ How much of this is your
taste, and how much of it is the owner’s?” I asked a little more
abruptly than I probably should have as we ate.
    “ It’s more Mrs. Thomas’s
than it is mine. To be honest with you, I prefer your apartment.
I’m more into simple lines than all this ornamentation.”
    “ So you’ve been to my
place?” I asked as I served us both more pizza.
    He topped off our wineglasses, then said,
“Frances and I were friends, not just neighbors.”
    So he’d known the former tenant. “What was
she like, or is it too painful to talk about?”
    Barrett took a sip of wine, then said, “She
was comfortable, you know? Like a pair of slippers you’ve worn for
years, or a ratty old bathrobe. No, that’s not fair to her. You
must think I’m awful speaking of the dead so callously.”
    I felt myself gazing into his eyes.
“Barrett, I think that’s a wonderful way to describe a friend. I
just lost one myself, and I’m having a hard time with it.”
    He stared at me a moment, then said, “Did
you know Maggie Blake too?”
    I nearly dropped my wineglass. “She was in
my card-crafting club at Custom Card Creations.”
    He nodded. “So you’re a card maker too?”
    “ It’s my shop,” I said. “But
I never realized Maggie knew Frances.”
    “ Oh yes. They were great
friends,” he said, “And I got to know her in passing. Jennifer,
take care of yourself, would you promise me that? I don’t have many
people I like left in this world, and I’m hoping we can get closer
as time goes on.”
    I suddenly realized that there was more to
his body language and the tone of his voice than the words coming
out of his mouth. Was he actually making a pass at me over pizza?
And more importantly, how did I feel about it? I’d agreed to have
dinner with Greg tomorrow night, but was that really going anywhere
again?
    Barrett leaned in toward me, and I could
swear he was going to try to kiss me. It normally took me a lot
longer to warm up to a man, but there was something it about him,
some kind of charm, that held me in place.
    At the last second I pulled back, and all I
could manage was to smile as cryptically as I could. I was
struggling to come up with something to say when there was a
pounding on his front door. Was it Bradford coming to check on me,
or had Wayne decided to invite himself to dinner