Cast Iron Motive (The Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries Book 4) Read Online Free Page A

could manage it once we met or, more appropriately, caught up with Aunt Della again. I loved my brother more than life itself, but he could drive me batty sometimes. I was sure that he could say the same thing about me, and who knows? We were probably both right. He might have been reluctant to get involved with our estranged aunt again, but I had to fight the temptation to drive to Gateway Lake even faster than the speed limit allowed. There was a great deal I’d missed by not having her in my life, and I for one was eager to make up for lost time. That was why it was so imperative for us to make sure that she was safe. I knew that Pat would do his best as well to solve the case, at any rate. After all, deep down, he was a good guy. How could he not be? We were fraternal twins, which wasn’t quite identical, but it was still a bond deeper than many siblings shared. “What do we do, start grilling her as soon as we arrive?”
    “I’ll allow a little time for us all to get reacquainted,” he said magnanimously.
    “How long?”
    “Ninety-seven seconds sounds about right to me,” he replied with a smile.
    “It’s going to take considerably longer than that.”
    “That’s fine, but just remember, every minute we’re not trying to get to the truth is potentially another minute that her life is in danger.”
    “When you put it that way, I have a hard time disagreeing.”
    “Don’t you just love when that happens?” he asked as his smile reappeared.
    “Not so much, but I’ll let that one slide. So, we say our hellos, then we dig straight into her suspicions and see where they lead us. It’s not much of a plan, as far as plans go, is it?”
    Pat just shrugged. “I know it’s not perfect. That’s why I’m open to suggestions.”
    “I just wish I had one,” I said.
    The rest of the drive went much better, and after passing the town limit sign for Gateway Lake, I felt the butterflies in my stomach doing belly flops. I was about to connect with my mother’s sister, a link that I’d nearly lost forever. There were banners draped across the main road proclaiming something called the Winter Wonderland, and I could see different decorations still up from what must have been a fairly recent event. Plastic snowflakes hung down from the light posts, and eight-foot-tall wooden snowmen were placed everywhere. Most of them had been painted the traditional white, but some sported colors as different as psychedelic tie-dye all the way to flannel patterns to ones draped with old Christmas lights. It appeared that we’d just missed the festivities, but that was fine with me.
    My hands began to tighten on the steering wheel. I was surprised to find that I was nervous about the coming encounter. I glanced over at my brother, who was chewing his bottom lip. “Are you anxious about seeing her again?”
    “Not particularly,” Pat said absently, and then he must have realized how callous it must have sounded. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just that we’ve got a pretty daunting task in front of us. Back in Maple Crest, we know just about everybody in town. We’re strangers here, and no one has any reason to answer our questions, let alone trust us.”
    “Don’t you think the fact that we’re Aunt Della’s family will count for something?”
    “Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “Then again, if someone’s trying to kill her and she can’t even figure out who it is, it may mean that she’s made herself some enemies here.”
    I patted his leg. “Don’t worry, Pat. There’s two of us and only one person trying to kill her. Whoever wants her dead doesn’t stand a chance.”
    “I hope you’re right. How much farther is it?”
    “Based on the instructions Aunt Della gave me, it should just be a few minutes now,” I said.

Chapter 3: Pat
    “R emember to smile,” Annie told me as she pulled up in front of a dated cottage in bad need of a fresh coat of paint. A streetlight in front of the place