Read Never Con a Corgi for Free Online

seat.
    Leigh waved back without enthusiasm.
    "Was that Aunt Mo?" Allison asked immediately. "Who was with her? And why was she at Aunt Cara's?"
    Leigh bit her lip. It never failed. Whenever she or Warren made a concerted effort to hide some age-inappropriate issue from the children, Allison was on it like sonar. Having the uncanny ability to detect information she had no business knowing in the first place was, Leigh noted ruefully, just about the only trait the child did not share with her socially oblivious grandfather.
    Ethan's attention remained on his handheld game.
    "She told me she had to see Cara this morning about something," Leigh answered, keeping her voice matter-of-fact. "I don't know who the man was. Probably another detective."
    She pulled the van into the garage, and she, two kids, and one dog piled out. Within seconds, the children had multiplied to four.
    "We've been waiting for you!" came a sing-song female voice.
    "Hope you're hungry!" came a young tenor. "We made a power lunch. You've got to come see it!"
    "Mom let us cook whatever we wanted, and she said you could come!"
    "Can we, Mom?" a smiling Ethan and Allison asked in unison.
    Leigh looked from her own offspring to those of her cousin: the cherubic, sensitive ten-year-old Melanie and the commanding, confident twelve-year-old Mathias. "The Pack," as the foursome were affectionately called, had been inseparable ever since she and Warren had decided to buy the house next to Cara and Gil's six acre farm five years ago. It hadn't exactly been their dream house, but the appeal of having readymade access to both playmates and babysitters had been too enticing to pass up.
    "Are your sure it's okay with your mom?" Leigh asked, noticing as she did so that Cara herself was approaching up the driveway.
    "Of course!" Mathias insisted. "It was her idea in the first place!"
    Leigh looked over her young "nephew's" shoulder to survey her cousin, whose pale face and artificial smile did not bode well for the outcome of Maura's interview. Most likely, Cara had released the children in her kitchen along with the ordinarily forbidden stores of tortilla chips, cheese dip, pepperoni, and frozen nuggets in order to keep them out of earshot of the detectives' questions.
    It looked like it had worked.
    "Sure, then," Leigh answered. "You guys run along and eat. But don't forget to help clean up the mess afterwards—"
    The children were already gone.
    Leigh stood silently as her cousin approached. No sooner had the throng of children run past her than Cara's fake smile morphed into an anxious grimace. "I cannot believe this," she proclaimed, patches of red now inflaming the cheeks of her ordinarily peaches-and-cream complexion. "I just can't. It's so unfair!"
    Leigh reserved comment. She could interpret the statement as sympathy for Brandon Lyle, but she knew better. Although her cousin was a kind, tolerant, and good-hearted soul who wouldn't ordinarily squash a fruit fly, when anyone or anything threatened one of her brood, the woman was downright scary.
    "That man!" Cara continued, "has been nothing but trouble for Gil since the day they met. And now... this!"
    Leigh reached down and released Chewie from his lead, against which he was straining in a vain effort to follow the children. Given the dog's proclivity for treating cars (and trucks, and motorcycles, and armed bandits) as friends, he was limited to his own yard by an electronic fence. But he nevertheless dashed off as soon as he was freed, determined to keep vigil as close to the property line as possible.
    "I'm sure it won't be a problem," Leigh lied. "People saw Brandon leaving the church after the fight. Someone must have seen Gil leave too, right?"
    Cara pushed a lock of her still long, still strawberry-blond hair over one shoulder. Leigh's always prettier cousin, who was two years younger, had somehow managed to emerge from their decade of mutual motherhood looking a full ten years younger. Fortunately, since