DEATH BY BUBBLE BATH
“But you can’t quit,” Heidi said. “When will I see you?”
“We can meet after school.”
“What happens when you get another job?”
She had me there.
“Can’t you stay a little while longer, until I get used to this ‘stick up for myself’ thing?”
The thought of one more day on that toilet bowl made me cringe, but Heidi looked so vulnerable, I couldn’t say no.
“Okay,” I sighed. “But just for a few more weeks.”
As it turned out, I didn’t even have to stay a few more hours. Because when I walked into the bathroom to report for work, the first thing I saw was SueEllen floating face down in the bathtub.
“SueEllen?” I called out, hoping maybe she was doing some new age water aerobics.
But she didn’t answer.
At first I thought it was an accident; maybe SueEllen slipped in the tub. But then I saw something floating alongside SueEllen’s loofa sponge and triple-milled French soap: A hair dryer. Plugged into an electrical outlet.
SueEllen had been electrocuted!
I managed to keep my cool for a whole three and a half seconds. After which I went screaming down the hallways like an extra in Nightmare on Elm Street….
Books by Laura Levine
THIS PEN FOR HIRE
LAST WRITES
KILLER BLONDE
SHOES TO DIE FOR
THE PMS MURDER
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
A Jaine Austen Mystery
Killer Blonde
Laura Levine
KENSINGTON BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
For Mark
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to my editor, John Scognamiglio, for believing in Jaine Austen—and for thinking up such a nifty title. To my agent, Evan Marshall, for being such a good listener and advice-giver extraordinaire. Thanks also to Joanne Fluke, author of the deliciously clever Hannah Swensen mysteries, for her much-appreciated generosity. And to Carlos Marrero for his terrific cover art. A special thanks to my family and friends, for their love and support. And, finally, because I know he’ll be impossible to live with if I don’t mention him, thanks to the cat in my life, Mr. Guy.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
You’ve Got Mail!
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
You’ve Got Mail!
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
You’ve Got Mail!
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
You’ve Got Mail!
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
You’ve Got Mail!
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
You’ve Got Mail!
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
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Copyright © 2004 by Laura Levine
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ISBN 13: 978-1-4967-2575-2
ISBN 10: 1-4967-257-1
eISBN 13: 978-0-7582-6511-1
eISBN 10: 0-7582-6511-5
First Hardcover Printing: July 2004
First Mass Market Paperback Printing: May 2005
Printed in the United States of America
Prologue
My name is Jaine, and I’m a bathaholic.
Yes, it’s true. I like nothing better than to tear off my clothes in the middle of the afternoon and leap into a hot bubble bath. So it’s lucky I’m a freelance writer. While other working stiffs are trapped in offices, chained to their computers, I can hop into the tub any time I please.
Which is what I was doing the day SueEllen Kingsley first called me. I’d just finished writing a slogan for a new client, Tip Top Dry Cleaners (We’ll clean for you. We’ll press for you. We’ll even dye for you.), and I was relaxing in a marvelous haze of strawberry-scented bubbles. The mirrors were fogged over. The radio, if I remember correctly, was playing a soulful Diana Krall love song. And my cat Prozac was perched on top of the toilet tank, licking her privates, visions of fish guts dancing in her head.
It was one of those blissful moments I often experience after I’ve finished a writing assignment, basking in the glow of a job well done (or done, anyway), until it dawns on me that now that the assignment is over, I’m out of work again.
I was still in the bask-in-the-glow stage when the phone rang. I let the machine get it.
“Ms. Austen.” A syrupy, southern-accented voice drifted out from the machine. “SueEllen Kingsley here. I saw your ad in the Yellow Pages—”