Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (14 page)

"How l
ovely. Grandma O’Shaughnessy will be so excited!
" squealed
my mother, a smile spreading across her face as she contemplated a sixth grandchild to add to the existing brood.
The mention of Grandma O’Shaughnessy sent shivers through the room.
"Alexandra would love the challenge. It's not like she's b
usy with her little temping job,
"
she added.

I scowled and pinched my nose to stop my nostrils flaring in annoyance.
Oh, how I wished I could have said I was now a super secret agent on the
trail
of a murderer. Except, so far
,
I'd done nothing but hide in a
closet
—
mmm
, nice memory of Adam there
—
and hand over the memory stick
,
as well as agree to snoop on everyone I knew at work.
Nope,
I couldn't
say that
. I had to keep
my mouth shut and take the jibe
,
cross
ing
my fingers that Grandma O’Shaughnessy wouldn’t be planning a visit anytime soon.
She was ancient and mean and probably born that way.

"No problem," I smiled sweetly, elbowing Lily in the ribs
.
I
f she thought I was tackling this alone, she was so wrong. "So, when's baby due?"

"In three months. A fall baby," Serena clarified, just in case I
was challenged at
working out the season.
All the same, I had to count backwards on my fingers. Serena was in her sixth month and none of us had noticed a bump. Now
that
I thought about it, it explained the flowing tops.

"I'm very happy for you both," I
managed
, my smile echoing the size of my mother's
,
who was already chirping about clothing and knitting.
I could
have
be
en
wrong, but I didn’t think she could knit.

"I think we should have a celebratory drink," interjected Dad, ambling over to the door. I suspected self-medication was about to occur.

"Non-alcoholic," chirped Serena, and I wondered if her unbearable perkiness was going to continue throughout the entire pregnancy, and if that was really an improvement on her normal self. Personally, I couldn't wait until she got cankles.

"Double shots for the rest of us," said Dad, under his breath, but I'm pretty sure only I heard. Mostly
because
Mom and Sere
na
were
squealing something about crib
s and whether drop sides were really a safety threat or not. Apparently
,
it was something worthy of a lot of debate
,
given Traci
’s
and Alice's contributions.

"Let's go." I nudged Lily and we slipped out of the room, following Dad down the hallway into the kitchen
.
H
e was pulling a bottle of emergency
slash
celebratory
c
hampagne left over from Christmas out of the refrigerator while simultaneously downing a shot of whiskey.

"To the next generation," he toasted us
a
s he
poured another one
.

Lily knocked him on the elbow playfully. "Not ready to be a grandpa again, Mr
.
Graves?"

"Not ready to be a father," grunted my dad.

"Oh, Dad, you'll be just fine." It's the rest of us that
will
suffer the most, but I decided not to share that. Gosh, I'm a good daughter.

I sat with Dad to watch the news while Serena filled in Traci and Alice about her plans for the nursery. They were far better qualified than I t
o discuss the intricacies of crib
s and
onesies
. Serena
was even receptive to the
name tips from Rachel
,
who thought the names
,
"Pumpkin" and "Toodles" sounded great for a girl or a boy. Now
as
I thought about it,
and
after
seeing her talk to Rachel,
maybe Serena would make a good mother. And Ted probably would
continue to
work late
at
the office until
the child
was eighteen
,
so the
chances of
him or her
being ruined by his input
and influence
were
low.

“How’s anger management?” I asked Jord as he wedged himself onto the sofa, squashing me between Dad
and him
.
Lily gazed at Jord in
unbridled
adoration. I kicked her shin.

“It’s amazing. I love it.” He gave me a Cheshire cat grin before stretching his long legs all the way under the coffee table.

“You’re not supposed to love it,” I told him. “You’re supposed to feel remorseful
, bare your soul and promise to never do it again
.”

“
To hell with that mumbo
-
jumbo shit. Ow, Dad, sorry
,
okay
?
” said Jord as Dad reached around me and lightly cuffed his ear without saying a word. “No more swearing, got it. Anyway, t
he chick who takes the class. She’s got hooters like…” As Jord extended his hands, cupping them, Dad coughed politely right before my mother walked past and smacked him over the head with a magazine. “Ow!
Jeez, Mom! No wonder I have anger issues. Anyway, the view
makes the soul
-
bearing stuff just about manageable.”

“Poor you. How you suffer.”

“I do,” Jord agreed. “
Tomorrow night we’re going to talk feelings again. We have to talk about the event that brought us there and how we feel.”

“Yeah? How’s that
going
?
”

“I was piss
ed off and that punk deserved a broken nose
,” said Jord decisiv
ely. “He was lucky I was off balance.”

“You might want to adjust your story before tomorrow night,” I suggested.

“No worries. I plan on squeezing a tear. She’s big on hugs for the ones that cry. I’ve been practicing my sad face in the mirror.”

I sighed at his dedication and shook my head. Asking a Graves man to bare his feelings was like asking a hungry lion to play nice with the stray dog that just fell into its den: it wasn’t going to happen. They’d rather just get messy.

"Jeez Louise, w
ould you look at that," said Dad, nodding at the scene that flashed onto the screen.
The local news channel ticker flitted across a screen crowded with
onlookers
. We
watch
ed as
a covered stretcher
was
loaded into the back of the
Montgomery
morgue mobile, as it was known locally
,
before the anchor came back into view,
recapp
ing the event
.
Ron Harris
, said the caption
underneath
,
forty-two, killed in a hit
-
and
-
run
,
then a number for
any eye
witnesses to call in. "What kind of asshole plows into someone and leaves them to die in the street like a dog?"
Dad asked, with a shake of his head.

"Dunno, Dad."

"Bad karma will come."

I cut a sideways glance at him.
"You been reading one of Mom's magazines?"

"No. I saw it on one of those psychic shows on television."

"You need to get out more."

"Tell me about it."

"You need to put your shoes on, open the door and leave the house and do all the stuff you couldn't do when you were a cop."

"Funny, Lexi. Funny."

"Don't forget your keys."

After
a
dinner of my mother's baked salmon, new potatoes and greens,
topped off
with chocolate cake
, I went in search of
Garrett
and
caught him sneaking a cigarette on the back porch. He hid it guiltily behind his back when I slipped through the sliding door, pulling it closed behind me.

"I'm down to one a day," he said,
returning the cigarette to his lips
when he saw it was me. I drew
in
a lungful of tar
, as well as other
carcinogenic
gases
.

I put my hands in the air. "I'm not judging," I said.
Then coughed.

"A year ago
,
it was twenty a day,"
Garrett
continued
. "I'm nearly there.
I’ll quit soon.
"

"Good for you
,
Gar'. D
o you know a detective named
Adam
Maddox?"
I asked, framing the question as casually as I could.

"Sure.
Maddox w
orked
homicide
a while
."

"Brown hair, blue eyes, a
bout six
-
one?"

"That's the one. Why?"

I thought about that for a moment. I didn't want to say anything about what
went
down at Green Hand, so instead
,
I said, "Oh, a girlfriend wanted to know."