Worst Laid Plans (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 1) by Claire Robyns Page A

lure people in to ferret out their dark—innocent—secrets? I was onto this detective with the smile that softened his jaw and creased into his dreamy gray eyes.
    I had a list a mile long, but the yellow crime scene tape jumped the queue. “The toxicology report came back?” I said, more of a demand than a question. “Was Ms Daggon poisoned? Is Hollow House a crime scene now?”
    “How do you know about the toxicology reports?”
    Uh oh .
    The smile went out of his eyes as he rubbed his jaw, studying me. Maybe drawing lines from me to my best friend Jenna to her new boyfriend Jack. Nothing I’d divulged during that interview was sacred, and unfortunately I’d divulged just about everything.
    Detective Bishop turned his shoulder on me and called down the passage, “Sanders!”
    A uniform popped his head out from around the bend in the passage.
    “I’ll be upstairs, starting with Ms Storm’s room,” the detective informed him. “Send Jeffers and Manderson up when they’re done in there.”
    “Wait just a minute,” I blurted out.
    He cocked his head at me, brow raised.
    “I haven’t given you permission.”
    “I don’t need it, remember?” he said, moving toward the foot of the staircase in a determined stride. “You’re welcome to come along and watch or stay down here. Your choice.”
    I scurried after him, staring daggers into his back and bristling at the seams. My legs were still a bit rubbery, my lungs still starved of oxygen from my mad dash. The stairs were killing muscles I never knew I had.
    At the top, I bent double to rub a cramp from my calf, clawing at the railing and breathing heavily. It wasn’t just the long drop from my adrenaline high. It was the swirl of anger and frustration, the cop invasion, the realization that Ms Daggon had likely been murdered one floor below while I slept.
    I felt like I was spiraling out of control.
    Detective Bishop stopped his striding to turn and watch my imminent collapse. His suit jacket hitched open as he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. “If this is a delay tactic, Ms Storm, it won’t work.”
    I glared up at him from my tilted position. The blasted man was about to go sniffing through my underwear drawer. Why on earth would I delay the inevitable when I wished it were already over?
    “No one,” he explained to my genuine expression of cluelessness, “is that unfit.”
    “Believe me, detective,” I said in what was meant to be a waspish tone but merely came out sounding like a woman in the final stages of labor, “I’m this unfit.”
    “You wouldn’t think so to look at you,” he drawled, a grin melting into the ridges and dips of his jaw while his look grazed every inch of me from head to toe.
    Then he was off again, striding down the long hallway until he came to my bedroom. “It’s this one, right?” he said, glancing back at me. “Mr Burns indicated it was right at the end.”
    I straightened and nodded, and stood there a moment longer to regain my lost composure. When I finally slipped inside my bedroom, Detective Bishop was rifling through the cherry wood bachelor chest.
    I leant against the wall just inside the door, wrapping my arms around my waist. If this were a movie, he’d pluck out a dainty piece of lace and dangle it with a leery gleam in his wicked eye. I almost wished he would. There was something too real about the way he methodically opened and closed each drawer with cool detachment.
    “What exactly are you looking for?”
    “This is an ongoing investigation, Ms Storm.” He left the chest of drawers and crossed to the wardrobe. “I can’t disclose that information.”
    “But it’s okay to disclose everything I told you and use it against me,” I lashed out. “Funny that, I don’t remember you reading me my rights.”
    “You weren’t arrested,” he said, his head hidden behind the wardrobe door. “What am I supposed to have used against you?”
    “Not directly, maybe, but you hauled Mrs Colby in