Whiskey Rebellion (Romantic Mystery/Comedy) Book 1 (Addison Holmes Mysteries) (6 page)

I made the rest of the drive to Kate’s office in peace with no more close calls and decided it would probably be best if I didn’t indulge in one of my greatest weaknesses while traveling at a high rate of speed from now on.

The McClean Detective Agency was run from a two-story, red-bricked building that was more than a hundred years old. There were black shutters on each side of all the windows, green ivy growing riotously across the front and large white columns flanking the front door. It was on the corner of a block filled with similar looking buildings that housed law firms, doctor’s offices and tax agencies.

The street was packed, so I parked at the end of the block and walked to the building. My head was throbbing by the time I made it up the stairs to the second floor.

I waved hello to Lucy Kim, Kate’s secretary, and as usual hurried past her desk as
quickly as possible. The woman scared the crap out of me. There was something in her eyes that made it very clear she was way more than an average secretary. She looked really crazy and deadly at the same time. She always dressed in black and the highest heels I’d ever seen in my life. Her hair was straight as rain down her back and her lips were always the color of blood, like she’d just finished feeding.

I shivered when she just stared at me with a blank expression instead of saying hello in return. Like I said, she scared the crap out of me.

I nodded to a few other familiar faces and knocked on Kate’s open office door before sticking my head inside. Kate sat at her desk, piled high with papers, and still managed to look professional and cool.

“Hey, come on in. I was wondering if you’d changed your mind after yesterday,” she said, standing up to give me a quick, but preoccupied hug. 

I looked down at Kate’s practical blazer and white stretchy shirt tucked into dress slacks in no-nonsense gray and shook my head. I’d never been able to get her to see the importance of colors and accessorizing. I could see her shoulder holster when she moved back behind her desk, and I wondered if I got my P.I. license if Kate would let me carry one too.    

“I got held up in a little traffic on the way here,” I lied. “What is this suit you’re wearing?”

“Don’t start, Addison. I’m a private detective, not a supermodel,” she said, exasperated.

Kate
looked me over from top to bottom. “That must have been some traffic because you’ve got chocolate sauce on your shirt and a bump the size of the Grand Tetons on your forehead.”

My forehead was a little sore, but I ignored the pain. I was more concerned about the small glob of chocolate on my left breast. It was an exercise in
self-control that kept me from leaning down to lick it off.

“Dammit, this is
vintage George Michael.”

“Look on the bright side. No one will be able to see you since you’ll be hiding out in your car the whole time.”

“Good point. You know, I have some serious reservations about your secretary. Have you done a background check on her? I bet she’s an assassin for hire or maybe even a vampire. I bet she’s the head vampire, not one of those lowly minions that have their minds warped during the transition.”

Kate looked at me like I was an idiot and rolled her eyes. “I think
your
mind’s warped. Lucy is very good at her job, but I wouldn’t stand in her way if I were you. I’m lucky to have her.”

“Well, I tell you, something’s not right about her. I saw her at the supermarket a couple of weeks ago, and it surprised the hell out of me to see milk and eggs in her grocery basket. I figured she had the blood bank make deliveries right to her door.” 

“Has anyone ever told you you’re weird?” Kate asked.

“All the time,” I said, giving one last glance at the chocolate sauce on my shirt. “Okay, hit me with everything you’ve got. I’m ready to catch some bottom feeders.”

“Since you weren’t listening yesterday when I was passing along my infinite wisdom, I’ll repeat everything. The most important thing you need to remember is that you’re not out to
catch
anyone. Your only job is to trail each subject and snap a few photos. If you run into any trouble whatsoever, I want you to drive away. Period. And we
never
break the law.”

I nodded my head furiously, trying to convince her that I would never be so stupid as to get in the middle of anything dangerous or marginally illegal, but she knew me too well. Disaster was my middle name, and it showed a serious lack of judgment on her part that she’d even offer me a job like this. But for a hundred bucks a night, I could be agreeable to almost anything.

“We also have a confidentiality clause you need to sign. Most of our clients are from out of town, but we give local residents our promise to be discreet as well. There could be times when you’ll recognize somebody.”

“I can talk about it with you though, can’t I?”

“Absolutely. I always enjoy hearing the juicy tidbits. But you can’t tell your mother.”

Kate must have read the intent on my face because
a guilty flush washed over my skin. I had planned to do just that. Old habits were hard to break, and gossip in a small town was the same as breathing. My mother would never forgive me if she found out I knew other people’s dirty secrets and didn’t share them with her. That was grounds for being cut out of the family will.

“Oh, all right. I promise not to tell a soul. Except for you, of course.”

“Here are three of our most recent cases. All of them are allegedly cheating on spouses or significant others. I would take them home tonight and read them through before you start tailing them. It’ll make your job easier in the long run to have all the information in your head.”

I flipped through the files. There was a doctor from Savannah, a librarian from Thunderbolt and a banker from Whiskey Bayou.

“Whoa, this is a file on John Hyatt,” I said.

“Yeah, you remember Fanny Kimble?”

“A couple of year older than us, head cheerleader, president of the math club, homecoming queen and valedictorian. Black hair down to her ass, big blue eyes and built like a supermodel—all leg and no breast. How could I forget Fanny Kimble?”

“Well in a few months she’s going to be Mrs. John Hyatt. The only problem is she thinks he’s cheating on her. She suspects it’s a relationship he had before they ever met that has continued over the past couple of years. She’s found expensive lingerie a time or two and receives hang up calls when she spends the night at his house.”

“But how could he cheat and get away with it?” I asked naïvely. “He works at the bank and lives on the busiest corner in town. You’d think someone would notice.”

“Which is why you’ll need to
talk to the neighbors when you get a chance. Besides, just because we live in a small town doesn’t mean the people there don’t have secret lives. Look at Greg, for example. He’d been sleeping with you and Veronica for two months before you were supposed to get married, and you never had a clue.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” I said. “I think I’ll leave on that pleasant note and go earn some money.” 

Before I could gather all my things there was a terse knock and a powerful presence at the door that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and heat shoot straight to my unmentionables. I looked down to make sure my clothes were still on and hadn’t melted away at the first sign of such masculine vitality.

“Sorry I’m late. You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. I caught two homicides this morning, and then some drunk woman ran me off the road and a nail punctured my tire. I should have given her a ticket, but I couldn’t drive on a flat.”

Uh-oh. I recognized that voice now, though it was more expressive than the first time I’d heard it. I looked up into the familiar face that hadn’t yet noticed my presence. He was an electric force standing in the doorway of Kate’s office, and a quick spurt of jealousy rushed through me as I wondered how they knew each other.

Nick got his first glimpse of me and narrowed his eyes. “I should have known it was you,” he finally said, shaking his head. “I thought I recognized the car, and my first impression of you was that you don’t seem to think things through too well.” 

“Hey, that’s not fair. You don’t even know me.”

“For which I can be eternally grateful, since I just changed a tire on hot asphalt that was baking my internal organs at a hundred and thirty degrees.”

“Why is your flat tire my fault?” I asked. “I honked. You should have gotten out of the way, but you sped up instead.”

“I was trying to get out of your way. You’re a menace to society. You shouldn’t be let out of a padded cell, much less issued a license to drive a vehicle.”

“I’m a very nice person, dammit. I’ve just been under a tremendous amount of stress lately and my life has gotten slightly misdirected.”

“Well, thanks for trying to bring me down with you. I deal with the scum of the earth on a daily basis, and I can’t r
emember the last time someone irritated me as much as you do.”

Nick’s voice hadn’t risen in volume since he’d started lecturing me. It had gotten softer and the words more terse and deliberate. I noticed the vein bulging out
in his forehead and thought it looked a little dangerous.

“
You need to take some anger management classes before you explode or something from keeping everything inside,” I said. “It wouldn’t hurt for that granite face of yours to show some emotion. Your bedside manner sucks. You didn’t even ask me if I was okay or make any personal observations when you questioned me.”

“Lady, I was there to investigate a murder, not participate in social hour. Besides, you were drunk. I was just trying to get you to tell me what you knew before you passed out in my lap. And speaking of Saturday, why the hell haven’t you come in to give your formal statement?”

“This is perfect,” Kate said before I could argue in my defense. “I’ve never known two people that make more memorable first impressions than the two of you. It’s absolutely perfect.”

Nick and I were both looking at Kate like she’d lost her mind. 

“Kate, I think your headband’s too tight. It’s cutting off the circulation to your brain,” I said.

I stood and gripped my small stack of file folders to my chest, hoping to hide the chocolate sauce I’d spilled on my boob
, and got ready to make a grand exit.

“I’m out of here, Kate. I’ll read these through and start the surveillance tomorrow night. I don’t think I’m up to starting tonight anyway. It’s been a hell of a day, and Mr. Personality is giving me a headache.”

“Kate, please tell me you’re not giving this nutcase a job. She couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag. How the hell is she supposed to follow a suspect around unnoticed? She has the subtlety of a neutron bomb and the luck of Jimmy Hoffa.”

“All right. That’s enough. Who the hell do you think you are?” I asked, poking my finger into his chest
hard enough so he took a small step in retreat. He narrowed his eyes menacingly.

“I’m a cop, and I
could have you arrested for assaulting an officer,” he said, taking hold of the finger I had pressed against his rock hard pectoral muscle and pushing it away. “Want to see what it feels like to be cuffed and put in the back of a police cruiser?”

A shot of heat spread from my loins to all my pleasure points, my eyes widened and my breath caught at the image, and I could tell he wasn’t entirely without imagination either as he realized where our conversation was leading.

“If you two will give it a rest, I’d like to give my clients the illusion that this is a place of business,” Kate said in her best intimidation voice. 

I was caught off guard becaus
e Nick smiled at Kate’s attempt to restore order. Damn those laugh crinkles in the corners of his eyes. I’d just had more of a sexual rush in the last ten minutes than in the whole two years I’d spent with Greg. My sympathies went out to Veronica. She could have Greg with my blessing.

Kate looked at me in exasperation.
“I told you not to delay giving your statement, Addison. Why don’t you follow Nick back to the station and get that taken care of? There’s no point delaying the inevitable. Don’t argue,” she said, as I was about to do just that.

She turned her attention to Nick. “Addison and I have been best friends since the first grade. She’s going to work for me for a little while as a personal favor. You two will probably run i
nto one another on occasion, so my only request is that you don’t shed blood in my building. It’s damn hard to keep a good business reputation nowadays, and blood is hell to get out of industrial grade carpet.”

I nodded stiffly in the jerk’s direction and gathered up as much dignity as I could find. I was running a little low today, considering everything I’d been through up to that point, but I was a southern woman and I could be dignified in my sleep. For the most part. Despite my mother’s best efforts, sometimes I fell off the wagon a little.

“I’m not the one you have to worry about. I can get along with anyone. It’s obviously Detective Sugar here that needs a lesson in manners.”

I thought that was a great exit line, but I didn’t get out the door fast enough to miss his parting words.

“Is that chocolate on your shirt?” he asked with a leer.