The Lady Who Sang High: A Reed Ferguson Mystery (A Private Investigator Mystery Series - Crime Suspense Thriller Book 7) by Renee Pawlish

couldn’t believe how long it had taken me to finish the cleaning. I wasn’t used to manual labor, and my hands and back hurt from sweeping for so long.
    I stretched my back and looked around, noticing the lab door was slightly ajar. I wanted to go in and look around, but could I do so inconspicuously? I hefted the broom in my hand. I’d use it as an excuse. After all, no one specifically said not to clean in there.
    Turns out, I didn’t have time to use my excuse. I pushed open the door, stepped inside, and was greeted by a snarling voice.
    “What’re you doing? You’re not supposed to come in here!”
    Carlo was standing at the microscope in the corner, glaring at me. Pete was at the table, examining a plant. He stared at me with a disinterested look.
    “Sorry, I didn’t know.”
    I backpedaled as he stomped over. “Well, now you do.”
    I tried to look over his shoulder but he pushed me out the door.
    “I’m going for a smoke,” he said to Pete. Then to me, “Come on. I want to talk to you.”
    “Uh, okay,” I said. “I’m not sure I can take a break.”
    “Of course you can. You’re hourly, so you’re entitled to fifteen minutes every four hours. Trust me, no one’s going to say anything.”
    I followed him down an aisle and to the back door. I left my broom by the door and we went outside. We crossed the alley and he leaned against the wall of the other building. I stood near him, in the shadow of the building, but the shade did little against the July heat.
    “Am I in some kind of trouble?” I asked innocently.
    “Forget it.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, shook out one, and lit it. “But if Jude saw you…” He glanced down the alley, where I’d found Jude’s body. A piece of yellow crime-scene tape dangled from the corner of the Dumpster, the only reminder of his murder. “Um, anyway, you need to watch your back, though, because they’re pretty careful about their secret.”
    “What secret?”
    He blew out smoke and threw me a sly look. “No one’s said anything?”
    I shrugged. “About what you and Pete do in the lab? Just that you’re experimenting with new strains, trying for a better high.”
    He grinned, his swarthy chin jutting out roguishly. “Trust me, it’s more than that.”
    “Like what?”
    “Hell, I don’t know.” He smoked for a moment. “But something’s going on, and Jude was acting weird lately.”
    “No one seemed to like him.”
    He laughed, a harsh sound without humor. “Yeah, he was kind of an asshole, and he’d gotten worse in the last few weeks.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s whatever this secret is.” He said it like it was so obvious. “He’d come in and ask me all kinds of things about my experiments, and he’d give me specific instructions. Then a day later, he’d add things to what I was doing, or he told me to quit doing one experiment and try something different. I could tell he’d been working on stuff at night, but he didn’t share what he’d found out. It sucks to be kept in the dark. But hell, they pay me well, so I don’t ask questions.”
    “Was he having Pete do stuff, too?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. Pete doesn’t say much. When we compare notes, it looks like all he’s working on is crossing strains, but who knows? I could be missing something.”
    We stood in silence for a moment. A car with a loud muffler zipped by the alley entrance, its powerful roar rattling between the buildings.
    “You said no one likes Jude,” I prompted after the reverberation died away.
    “Yep.”
    “That’s not what Jodie told me.”
    He snorted. “Dude, people couldn’t stand Jude. But he was her brother, right? All she talks about is how he was there for her after their parents died, and how he looks out for her. She put him on a pedestal a long time ago, and there isn’t a thing that’s going to knock him off. She’s clueless.”
    “Was he nice to people when she was around?”
    “No, not really nice, he just