Whiskey Rebellion (Romantic Mystery/Comedy) Book 1 (Addison Holmes Mysteries) (14 page)

I was tired, irritated, sore and really turned on, so I took Kate’s advice and downed a Vicodin
with the hopes it would put me out of my misery.

Friday

It was the last day of school.

Thank God.

And what made it even better was that there was only a half day of classes so the seniors could have plenty of time to get ready for graduation that night.

It was the second week of June, and summer lay over the state like a wet blanket that was suffocating the life out of everything. The weather was unpredictable, with severe storms raging one moment followed by heat waves that made citizens irritable and seniors die from heat stroke. The only thing worse than Georgia in June was Georgia in July and August.

When I was a teenager, I used to sit at my cramped school desk—o ne that somehow always managed to have gum on the underside so it stuck to my knees—and wait impatiently for the bell to ring at the end of the day.

As soon as I heard that glorious sound I’d grab my backpack and rush out the door. I’d head directly to my job at The Drug Mart, where I sold a lot of condoms and greeting cards, and I’d wish like crazy that I
could just hurry up and graduate so I could be a part of the real world.

Somehow, after four years of college, I’
d ended up in the same place I started, sitting at a little larger desk and needing the bell to ring worse than a wino with the shakes and a booze shortage.

When the bell rang at twelve-thirty I grabbed my things and rushed into the hallway, taking five seconds to lock my classroom door. I turned around and ran right into Rose Marie Valentine.

“Oooomph,” she said.

I watched her fa
ll in slow motion onto her well-padded posterior. It wasn’t pretty.

“Oh my gosh. Are you okay?” I asked, scrambling down beside her as quickly as I could with my sore knee. We probably looked like a Vaudeville act to the casual observer. I gathered her papers and purse and tried to heft her up by the elbow, but Rose Marie was a lot of woman. It was a two handed job and I was one short, so I dropped her things on the ground again and put more of my weight behind the effort.

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she said, her glasses skewed at an odd angle on her nose and her breath huffing and puffing like she’d just run the Boston Marathon. 

“My goodness, you sure are in a hurry. You’d think this was the last day of school or something.” She twittered at her own joke and adjusted her glasses. “Where are you off to?”

“I’m headed to the mall. I’m going to the Officer’s Gala tonight with some friends and I need a new dress.”

“Oh, really?” Rose Marie said, her eyes lighting up. “That sounds so exciting. You have such an adventurous life. I just go home to my babies every day and do a lot of crossword puzzles. And then of course there’s Days of Our Lives. It’s like my second family.”

I’d seen Rose Marie’s babies. She had framed pictures of them all over her desk. She had two Mastiffs that were the size of small horses and they each had their own bedroom in her small duplex.

“I wish my life was as exciting as yours. I don’t even remember the last time I went to the mall.”

Rose Marie’s eyes got all misty and depressed and I felt as low as someone who had just kicked a puppy with a pointy-toed shoe. Not to mention the fact that I had just knocked her on her ass. Before I could stop myself, I heard the words coming out of my mouth. 

“Why don’t you come with me? It always helps to have a second opinion. But we have to hurry because I have exactly seven hours to make myself presentable.” 

Geez, I was such a sucker. Her face lit up, pink and round like Mrs. Claus.

“Why, that sounds like fun. And if we have time we can stop for lunch at that rest
aurant in the mall where each room is a different continent. I like to sit in the Australia room because the waiters are almost naked and they’ve got ‘em all slicked up with oil.”

I liked the
restaurant for the same reason, so I nodded in agreement. “Fine, but if they try to put us in Antarctica I’m going to protest. There’s nothing sexy about a pasty white guy in a parka.”

“
Amen, sister.” Rose Marie practically bounced out of her faux leather mules her excitement was so palpable. “And maybe we could order a couple of those drinks with the fancy umbrellas and fruit. It could be a real girl’s day out.”

“Uh-huh.” 

Some day I was going to learn to keep my mouth shut.

“What do you think about this one?” I asked, as I paraded out of the dressing room in the twenty-second dress I’d tried on. Rose Marie was a fashion critic of epic proportions, which I considered odd for someone who looked like a dumpling wrapped in a tablecloth every time I saw her.

“Ooh, that one’s good.”

I kind of thought so myself and was already imagining what kind of shoes I could buy to go with the red strapless sheath. The hem even went past my knees, so it covered up the swollen parts and bruises. The shimmering red complimented my golden skin tone, and I knew it was just the thing to make Nick beg.

“Of course, that kind of dress might give your date the wrong idea,” Rose Marie said with a little frown. “I don’t know if you should advertise yourself like that.”

I was past the point of caring what I was advertising. My feet hurt, my Extra Strength Tylenol was wearing off and I was one step away from telling Rose Marie exactly what she could do with her opinions on fashion. “I’m buying this dress,” I said defiantly.

Rose Marie blinked up at me owlishly. “It’s a beautiful dress. Of course,
it’ll look better with Spanx. That way you don’t’ have any unseemly lumps.”

“Are you saying I
have lumps?” I asked, my voice sounding suspiciously like a junkyard dog growling.

“No, no,” she said, swallowing nervously. “Even the movie stars where them. I read it in a magazine. It’ll just make you more streamlined. Though it might be a hindrance if you’re looking to get lucky.” She pursed her lips and looked thoughtful. “There’s nothing sexy about looking like your body’s being squeezed out of a sausage casing.”

My eyes got bigger the longer she talked and I realized I’d been out of the dating game far too long. Greg and I had been together two years, so I’d gotten comfortable not having to make too much of an effort.

“Sweet Mary,” I said as imagines
flitted through my mind of putting Nick’s eye out with a girdle.

“
Of course, you won’t have to worry about it if you don’t give in too easy.”

“
Right.” I nodded my head in agreement and tried to look non-desperate. “Let’s go buy some Spanx. It’s like a modern day chastity belt.”

Rose Marie hefted herself off the bench as I made my way back toward the fitting room. “Of course, you could always buy the crotchless kind just in case.”

My eye twitched once before I closed myself in the dressing room. I really needed a margarita.

After spending a couple of hours in Rose Marie’s company, I had the sinking feeling I knew why she spent most of her time with her dogs. She was the most socially inept person I’d ever come across. And I’d come across my share. Rose Marie made me look like a freaking diplomat.

I dragged her through the mall in search of killer shoes for the killer dress I’d just spent a fortune on. But the way I looked at it, a measly couple hundred bucks wasn’t all that much in the grand scheme of the whole
five thousand I was saving for. Skewed logic works in mysterious ways when you’re desperate for sexy shoes.

I found the perfect strappy four-inch heels for slightly less than I paid for the dress and rationalized the cost somehow in my mind when I stood in line to pay for them, but I’ve since forgotten what my reasoning was.

Rose Marie was bouncing happily beside me as I handed over my credit card. She was obviously spending money vicariously. I was thinking I needed to skip the margarita and go straight to the hot fudge sundae. I didn’t even have to feel guilty about it because I knew the Spanx would suck in the calories from the chocolate sauce.

“Excuse me,” said a husky southern voice that was as thick as butter cream from behind me.

I’m not afraid to admit that I was a little scared to turn around. All I needed was an irate spouse who I’d recently caught cheating to shove a fist in my face. A broken nose wouldn’t go well at all with my new dress.

I turned around and looked up into a pair of big blue eyes. Fanny Kimble had always been a beautiful woman, but I took a step back anyway. You never knew what a woman would do when her man was suspected of cheating.
Even if I’d been decked out in my red dress with perfect hair and makeup, I couldn’t hold a candle next to Fanny. Hell, Loretta Swanson would look like she’d just rolled out of the missionary barrel standing next to Fanny. Staring at Fanny Kimble was as close as I’d come in a long time to having a religious experience.

I heard a throat clear behind me and realized I was holding up the line, so I grabbed my new sho
es and stepped out of the store with Fanny, Rose Marie trailing after me like a lost puppy.

“I’m sorry to catch you off guard like this,”
Fanny said. “But I’ve been trying to get the courage to speak to you, and this seemed to be my best chance.”

Her hair shimmered like black diamonds under the mall track lighting and I couldn’t help but notice how smooth her lipstick was. There were no creases or dead skin visible, and her eyebrows were perfectly arched and smoothed. She was six feet tall and I had to look up to see into her baby blues.

“If this is about the investigation, I believe you’re supposed to speak with Kate. She’s the boss.”

“I know, and I will, but I just wanted to tell you personally that you can stop investigating John. I guess I had
pre-wedding jitters and overreacted. He promised that I was the only one for him and that he loved me. There has to be unwavering trust between two people that are getting married, don’t you think?”

I nodded, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t the best person to ask. I had unwavering trust in my last fiancé and look where that got me.

“Thanks, Addison. I knew you’d understand. I think it’ll be best for all of us if you just forget this whole mess. I’ll make sure to compensate the agency for the time you put in.” She walked in the opposite direction and every man in the vicinity stopped what he was doing and watched her exit.

“What’s that look on your face?” Rose Marie asked.

“It’s a look that means John Hyatt is scum. I’d bet my Z that he guilted her into making her think she was the one who was in the wrong. All that mumbo jumbo about unconditional trust. Which means he has something very big to hide. And until Kate gives me direct orders to stop working on the case, John Hyatt is going to be on my radar.”

Depression and guilt over my monetary situation didn’t set in until I was on my second margarita in the Australia room of the restaurant. The walls were made to look like rugged cliffs amidst the outback, and scraggly shrubs sprouted along the walls. A large fake snake was coiled behind Rose Marie’s head and stared at me out of glass eyes, judging me every time I took a sip of margarita.

I’d sufficiently ogled our waiter—who was wearing nothing more than a pair of low-riding cargo shorts, a big-ass knife at his belt and a hat that sat crooked on his head. His chest was bulky with muscles and he was tanned all over. I would have been much more excited about the ogling if I hadn’t taught him his freshman year of high school almost a decade ago.

“Wow, I’m just so amazed,” Rose Marie said, looking around with wide eyes. “You live such an exciting life, buying sexy clothes and going to balls. You’re just like a princess in a fairytale.”

“Yep
, that’s me.” 

“I want to be just like you. Maybe we could do this again sometime.”

The look on her face was so hopeful I didn’t have the heart to tell her no way in hell was I going out in public with her again. So I just lied. Again. 

I was mostly devout Methodist, but I was pretty sure I was going to have to do some kind of penance for all the lying I’
d been doing lately. On the upside, practice did make perfect. I was about to order a third margarita when I glanced out into the busy mall from our window view table and saw a familiar face.

“Oh my,” I said.
I opened my shoulder bag and dug through the new files Kate had dropped off. “I’ll be damned.”

Eddie Pogue was a Whiskey Bayou resident and a dead beat. He was a few years older than me and
he’d married someone a lot of years younger than me. Probably because a younger woman was easier for him to control. He’d been in an auto accident nine months before. According to the file, Eddie was suing the insurance company for refusing to pay him when he put in a claim that he’d been unable to work due to injuries and mental trauma caused by the accident. My job was to disprove his claims of injury.

“What is it?” Rose Marie asked excitedly. “I heard
in the post office the other day that you were a genuine private detective now. Is this a sting? Should we act covert?”