Aunt Missy Gets Ripe and February Hot Flash

Today is the first of the month, so there’s a new Hot Flash on the Hot Flash page.

This week’s excerpt from A DEAD GUY AT THE SUMMERHOUSE comes from near the end, when Mitch tells Aunt Missy what he’s learned about the dead guy.

Aunt Missy Gets Ripe

A DEAD GUY AT THE SUMMERHOUSE — excerpt
by Marian Allen

Aunt MissyAunt Missy shook her head, trying to deny what I was saying. She was pale; I could see that she wore rouge, lipstick, and eye shadow – all invisible when she had her natural color. I knelt beside her chair and put my arms around her, dogs and all. I shouldn’t have told her. I should have told Mr. Walton, and we could have kept it from her, somehow.

“Damn Albert!” she growled, and my arms sprang away from her in shock. “God damn that miserable son-of-a-bitch to hell.” She went on in that vein for a while, using some material that probably dated back to the twenties, and possibly some stuff that she had picked up from her father. I didn’t understand everything, but it all sounded pretty ripe. Poor dear little old lady.

“Have you told Matthew?” she asked.

“Haven’t found him. He wasn’t in his office, and I don’t know which room is his. Corrie says she hasn’t seen him all day.”

“We’ll put the dogs on their leashes and then we’ll find him. You tell him what you’ve told me; we’ll get Grant to back it up, if he won’t believe us. Eleanor will not stay another night under Mary’s care.”

We both stood up. She handed the dogs to me and snapped the leashes onto their harnesses.

“You take charge of them,” she said. “I want my hands free.”

Little and old she may have been, and she was certainly dear to me, but my Aunt Missy was no lady, and I hoped Mr. Walton wouldn’t try to be difficult.

~*~

A DEAD GUY AT THE SUMMERHOUSE is available at Amazon in paper and for Kindle and Kindle apps.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Your character misjudges the fragility of someone.

MA

About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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