Frosted Shadow, a Toni Diamond Mystery: Toni Diamond Mysteries Read Online Free

Longhorn C?”
    The woman shrugged. “Then I went on my break. In the staff room downstairs.”
    “Did you come back up later?”
    “No. I was finished in this part of the hotel. I did the bathrooms on the main floor after my break. Then I went home.”
    “Okay. Thank you for your help. If you remember anything, anything at all…”
    “I got your card.”
    The woman walked off with a heavy tread, like she spent all day on her feet and they were getting tired of it. The detective glanced at his watch and then scribbled some more.
    “Excuse me? Detective Henderson?”
    He turned to her. His eyes were so undecided between gray and blue that they were virtually colorless. “Yes?”
    “My name is Toni Diamond. I’m with Lady Bianca Cosmetics.” She watched what little color was in his eyes leach out as though she not only didn’t deserve his attention, she didn’t deserve full ocular pigmentation.
    “What can I do for you, ma’am?” Brisk. No time to waste.
    “Detective Marciano asked me to have a look at the cosmetics you found on the…at the scene of the crime.”
    The blankness vanished. If anything, he now looked at her with suspicion.
    If there was one thing she’d learned in her years of selling it was that with some people less is more in the talking department. Detective Henderson, she’d guess, was of the less is more school. She let him think about her request uninterrupted while he pinned her with that unnerving stare. Then he gave a sharp nod and said, “This way.”
    He led her back to Longhorn C and called over one of the technicians and asked for the make up samples. They all wore coverings over their shoes so even Henderson wasn’t going to go into that room without putting on special gear.
    The technician was young enough that he still had a little acne on his forehead. “It’s been bagged and tagged.”
    She got it. She wasn’t going to open the big baggie thing and apply the eye makeup, even if there hadn’t been a rusty red smudge in one corner of the Lady Bianca sampler pack that she didn’t even want to think about.
    He held it at eye level and she squinted at the starter kit. Henderson stood beside her so quiet and still she barely noticed him, but she felt his gaze on her face while she inspected the kit.
    “That’s odd,” she said.
    “What’s odd?”
    She turned sharply to find Detective Marciano at her elbow. She’d been so busy staring at the tiny case, trying to make sense of it that she hadn’t heard him approach. Or maybe creeping was one of his detective talents.
    “These samples?”
    “Yeah,” he sounded vaguely irritable. “Are they the same colors Jane Doe was wearing?”
    “No. They aren’t even this year’s colors.” She turned to him. “We haven’t handed out those samples since last year.”
    Detectives Marciano and Henderson seemed a tad underwhelmed at the news that the woman had died with last year’s sampler pack. Of course, to them it wouldn’t mean anything.
    “It’s against the rules. Once the colors change the sales rep is required to give out the new sampler packs.”
    They both nodded politely. “Thank you for your help, ma’am,” Marciano said. This time he didn’t even add the ‘if you think of anything call us,’ routine. Clearly, they didn’t think she had much of value to offer the investigation.
    If Toni were a believer in omens, she’d have to say that seeing a murder victim on the first morning of the annual conference wasn’t a good one. She felt pretty shaken up by the experience, but she didn’t have time to waste in self-indulgent moaning.
    She needed to stop whoever was giving out old sampler packs and the most efficient way she could think of to do that was to get hold of Orin Shellenbach and get him to send a reminder email to all the reps. Hopefully, he’d also find a way to reinforce the message to everyone who was right here at the conference.
    She headed down the escalator to the main level and noticed that