The Black Widow Read Online Free Page B

Poplar Trees, trying not to be impressed by its welcoming exterior. She was familiar enough with the area. The office complex was a recent addition to the city’s outskirts, playing host to a wide variety of professional services. A handful of Jo’s clients used the solicitors who worked from the building and she had recently dealt with a software company at this address. They each seemed like respectable businesses with high-profile, go-getting images.
    Jo had despised both of them for their pretensions.
    Flanked by a handful of high-reaching poplars, the building was designed to look simultaneously modern and old-fashioned. Bathed in glorious morning sunlight, against a cloudless blue sky, Poplar Trees could not have looked more inviting. It had a heavily stated air of ‘olde worlde’ charm that Jo always found irritating. She quashed the feeling, determined to direct her anger at Sam. She had never been very good at placing architectural styles and could not say what era it was meant to imitate. The building was an amalgamation of yellow Yorkshire stone and gold-tinted glass, with ornate Roman pillars guarding the entrance. Admittedly, it was a little more prestigious than the battered doorway of her previous premises, and Jo had to concede that the address was slightly more respectable than ‘above the off licence, opposite the 24-hours garage.’ But she wilfully ignored its affectation of respectability.
    She was surprised to see that there was a freshly painted parking spot on the forecourt. Her surname was emblazoned on the black tarmac in bright-yellow letters. It was a pleasant touch and it would have mellowed her mood if she had not seen Sam’s convertible parked in the spot next to it.
    The sight of the blazing-red Lotus rekindled her anger. In the shadow of Sam’s brilliantly polished sportscar, her own rust-eaten Ford Fiesta looked poxier than ever. As Jo parked her car, she contemplated scratching her own vehicle against the side of Sam’s. The only thing that stopped her was the fear of losing the Fiesta’s precarious front wing. She consoled herself with the thought that she could do just as much damage to Sam’s paintwork with the edge of her double-headed sovereign. Murderous thoughts still filled her mind and they continued to rage within her as she stormed into the building’s reception area.
    ‘Can I help you?’
    Jo glanced at the pretty, blonde receptionist, trying to take in the sumptuous surroundings of the building at the same time. A gold name badge with B ECKY printed on it hovered over the swell of her right breast.
    ‘I’m here to murder Samantha Flowers,’ Jo said calmly. ‘Can you tell me where her office is?’
    ‘Excuse me?’ Becky started hesitantly.
    ‘Ignore my grumpy friend,’ Sam said, appearing on Jo’s left. As always, she looked radiant. Long red hair flowed over the shoulders of her bottle-green jacket, framing her pretty, bespectacled face and accentuating the modest swell of her pert breasts. The short skirt she wore revealed long, coltish legs and Jo glanced at them with reluctant admiration. Sam was not wearing stockings this morning and Jo found her gaze drawn to the smooth cream-coloured flesh of her partner’s legs.
    Sam grinned easily at Jo, then turned her attention to Becky. ‘This is my partner, Jo Valentine,’ she explained. ‘And I suppose it would be best if you got to know her, so she can get into her new office.’
    Jo glared at Sam and then flashed Becky a tight smile. ‘It would be nice to stop and chat for a moment,’ she said with forced sweetness. ‘But Samantha here has a problem with her breathing and I’m about to sort that out.’
    Becky frowned and struggled to find something appropriate to say. Before she could manage it, Jo had grabbed Sam’s arm and dragged her out of the reception area.
    Sam walked quickly alongside Jo, seemingly untroubled by the arm-lock she was being held in. They marched through the long, richly carpeted