Whiskey Rebellion (Romantic Mystery/Comedy) Book 1 (Addison Holmes Mysteries) (12 page)

My mom doesn’t usually like to talk about the past, and I knew talking about my dad made her sad, but I felt like we were really having a great bonding moment. It was just the thought of anything to do with my parents and conception and bedrooms that I had trouble keeping my gag reflexes under control. 

“I’m af
raid there’s more of me in you and your sister than your father was hoping,” she continued. “I can at least be thankful you have a steady job and have never been to jail. Unlike Phoebe. Though you seem to have a bit of a problem with your temper. I don’t know where you get that from. I had a dozen people call me yesterday to tell me what a scene you made in the bank. I was mortified.”

“Well, John Hyatt shouldn’t have gone back on his promise,” I defended.

“You’re right about that, but a southern lady does not go around town causing scenes and stirring up gossip. A true southern lady can out manipulate General Lee when it comes to revenge. We’ll think of something. Just try to be more circumspect in the future.”

“Gotcha. Revenge is good. Gossip is bad. If only you’d told me these things in my formative years so I wouldn’t keep screwing up.”

I found myself in a familiar situation as I sat in the dark with my binoculars glued to my face hoping to catch Mrs. Wilder
in
flagrante delicto
. 

Basically, I was stalling. I knew what I had to do to get the job done. I just didn’t particularly want to do it. I pulled the anorak I’d borrowed from my mother over my head and zipped the camera in the front pouch so it wouldn’t get wet. I was going to have to get up close and personal to d
eliver what the client wanted. The rain hadn’t let up like I’d hoped and was still going strong. There was flash flooding all around the area. I could have used this as an excuse to go home and bundle under the covers, but according to Mattress Mattie you couldn’t make money in bed by yourself, so I had no choice but to get wet and dirty. Two of my least favorite things to do.

I was parked across the street from a small bungalow on Peters Street in Driftwood. Driftwood was a twenty minute drive from the Thunderbolt Public Library where Mrs. Wilder worked, but that’s the direction she and her boy toy headed after meeting in the parking lot of the library. 

And when I say boy toy, we’re talking literally. Mrs. Wilder knew how to pick ‘em. I had to give her credit for that. The kid couldn’t have been more than twenty. They’d been inside the bungalow about half an hour, which more than stretched my limit for sitting inside the car. 

“Surely that’s enough time to get things started.”

I tightened my hood and pushed at the car door. The wind had picked up and it took an effort to get it open. I kept my head down and trudged across the street, losing my balance twice in the gusts and nearly falling on my face.

I heaved a sigh of relief when I made it to the side of the house. The brick wall blocked most of the wind and rain and let me catch my breath. Lights were on all through the house, and I peeped around to look at the driveway one more time just to make sure I had the right house. Mrs. Wilder’s black Jeep Ch
erokee was parked next to a red pickup truck. It was the right house.

I jogged in place for a few seconds and gave myself a pep talk. “All right, it’s now or never.” 

I crept along the side of the house and started looking in windows. The first window I came to was an office of some sort, and it was empty except for a couple of boxes and a cheap metal desk. I exhaled a shaky breath and crept on, thanking God with every step that it was pouring down rain so no one could see me make a fool of myself.

The next room was the kitchen. There was an open bottle of wine on the counter and two empty glasses sitting next to it.

“All right. Getting closer.”

The third window I came to was kind of small and set high up off the ground. I could see the light shining through, but there was no way I could see in
without standing on something. I looked around frantically for a box or a table. No such luck. There was, however, a big oak tree that was growing right in between the bungalow and the house next door. If I climbed out onto the branch I would be able to see in. 

Now, I
was no dummy, so I decided the best thing to do before killing myself in a tree was to make sure I couldn’t see them from another window. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

The tree was my only option.

I’d never actually climbed a tree, so working for Kate was teaching me all kinds of new things, except I’d always hated to get dirty and nothing much had changed in my advanced age. All I can say is thank God for yoga because otherwise I’d be in real trouble.

I jumped up and grabbed hold of the lowest hanging branch and brought my legs up to wrap around it so I was hanging upside down like a possum. I was miraculously able to swing myself up into a sitting position and from there I hoisted myself up to the next branch.

“Piece of cake. I should have been a gym teacher.” If only it weren’t for those horrible blue wind suits they had to wear. 

I pushed myself with my legs as far as I could go towards the end of the limb and balanced while I dug the camera out of my front pocket.

Note to self: Next time get the camera out before you’re lying on your stomach.

“Oh man. Holy cow.” 

I’d hit the jackpot. The high window definitely looked into the master bedroom. I couldn’t really tell if I was looking at Mrs. Wilder or not since I didn’t have a close up photo I.D. of the parts I was looking at, but I was pretty sure I was at the right place.

It was like looking at a car wreck. All I could do was stare and hope there were no injuries. I’d never seen sex like this before in my life, not like I had a whole lot to judge by, but I was pretty sure that Mrs. Wilder was my new idol. And I had no idea how she was hanging from the ceiling, but it seemed to be getting the job done.

“Damn. Pictures.” 

I brought the camera up and started snapping pictures like a woman obsessed, afraid to look away in case I missed something. I don’t know how long I was in the tree, but I know I got an education I never got in health class. 

They looked to be winding down, and I realized I was pretty turned on and my body was frozen in one position. I must have been there longer than I’d thought.

I looked up again just to make sure my cover was still safe and was surprised to see they’d started again. 

“Wow, good for you guys.” 

I ha
d to say I was a tiny bit jealous, considering my sexual exploits revolved around The Tonight Show, and no matter how much I wanted to continue, Greg’s recharging period was about twenty-four hours. Maybe I should have gone for the twenty-year-old. Of course, Greg had been having sex with Veronica too, so I could be judging his staying power unfairly.

My thoughts automatically veered to Nick. I’d be willing to bet he didn’t need any recovery period. He was probably one giant hormone with a permanent erection.

I slowly untangled my legs and held in a yelp as thousands of tiny pinpricks ran rampant over my skin. I juggled the camera in one hand and tried to keep my balance, but it was hard to balance something that was dead weight. 

I’m pretty sure the thunder drowned out my scream as I hit the ground. It didn’t look like that far of a fall when I was standing on the ground looking up, but the breath was knocked out of me and I was pretty sure the ass was ripped out of my sweatpants, either that or I had explosively wet my pants.

Maybe I should have worn the underwear after all.

I lay on the ground for a couple of minutes and closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them I’d be at home in bed and waking up from a nightmare. 

Nope. That would be too easy.

I pushed myself slowly to my feet and whimpered all the way back to the car. The good news was that I had sav
ed the camera. The bad news—well, the extent of that had yet to be seen.

I opened the door to the Z and got in gingerly, holding my torn sweats together and favoring my knee. I put my head down on the steering wheel and wished I had the strength to weep, but all I managed was pathetic whimpers that damaged my pride more than it already was. 

“Getting caught as a peeping Tom is a misdemeanor fineable up to thirty days in jail and a five hundred dollar fine.”

I screamed at the voice coming from the next seat over and what was left of my adrenaline went into overdrive. 

Attack first. Think later. 

I don’t think my adrenaline was up to the fight because before I knew it both my arms were behind my back and a familiar voice was trying to calm me down.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Do you always attack innocent people? You’re crazy,” Nick said, shaking the fillings loose in my teeth.

“I’m crazy? Me? You don’t just get into someone’s car and scare the hell out of them and then call them crazy for being scared. Let me go!”

“Not until you calm down. And why didn’t you look to see if anyone was in your car before you got in? That would have been the smart thing to do.”

I was seething inside. I knew what Nick said was right, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hear it. As far as I was concerned, I was right too. I got really still and waited for him to release me, knowing I’d probably end up going to jail for the rest of my life, but I didn’t really care. I’
d heard the prisons had good doctors, and I could learn how to crochet. Maybe I could even get my Master’s Degree. Prison sounded like heaven at this point in my life.

As soon as he let me go I went into Tae Bo mode and landed a solid punch
to his jaw before he restrained me again. Now I had sore knuckles to add to my other list of injuries. But boy was it worth it. 

“Ouch. Son of a bitch,” Nick said, wiggling his jaw with his hand. “You need to be locked up.” He paused and looked down at my sweatshirt. “Are you wearing a bra?”

“Get out of my car. Now.”

“I need to talk to you about something if you can be normal for thirty seconds,” he said. “I didn’t follow you all this way so you could take swings at me. I’m trying to run a murder investigation, which is a hell of a lot more important than getting your jollies by watching live porn. Can you be an adult and talk to me?”

“I don’t think so. Take a goddamn number or make an appointment. I don’t care what you do. Just get the fuck out of my car!”

“Oh, I get it.
It must be that time of the month.”

I was pretty sure he saw the steam coming
out of my ears at that point, so he opened the door quickly, looking for an escape route. I floored the gas pedal before his feet hit the pavement and felt great satisfaction as I saw him stumble onto the ground on his hands and knees. The smell of exhaust and burnt rubber was the only reminder I had been there.

It had been a hell of a day, and I
didn’t think ice cream was going to make it better, but I was willing to give it a try anyway. And then I was going to chase it with a shot of vodka.

Thursday

“Are you all right, Ms. Holmes? You don’t look so good.”

I’d been hearing this same question every time the bell rang and a new class walked in the door. The answer to the question was simple. Hell no, I wasn’t all right. 

I’d lived thirty years without doing as much damage to myself as I had in the last five days. I’d broken a leg once trying to stand on my bicycle and pretend I was a circus performer, and I broke all the fingers in my left hand when they were accidentally slammed in the car door, but those incidents were nothing compared to the pain I was currently feeling. 

My head was down on my desk and the white noise of my students’ voices was lulling me to s
leep. For every teacher, there was always one class that made you want to stick forks in your eyeballs.

This was the class.

It was seventh period, the last class of the day, and it was filled with second year freshmen, athletic rejects, and girls that needed to buy stock in kneepad companies. 

This was the same class that when I asked who Benjamin Franklin was, only one kid raised his hand and said he was the dude on the money. I figured this kid should know all about Benjamins because he’d been busted twice for selling marijuana in the janitor’s closet during lunch.

Sometimes teaching made me feel like I was really making a difference in kids’ lives, but mostly it was depressing as hell. They were all bigger than me, meaner than me, and every one of them probably had a weapon of some sort in their baggy pants. 

I put a movie in and punched play, but didn’t dare turn the lights off because I didn’t want to contribute to the teen pregnancy rate.

I was seriously considering getting down on the floor to stretch out my aching muscles, but I knew I’d never be able to get back up again. My knee was swollen to the size of a grapefruit and my ribs were bruised from my fall from the tree. The good news was that the bump on my head had faded to a dull purple. To top it off, the treble choir next door had just started singing a
Grease
medley for the end of the year production. I could hear Rose Marie’s warbling voice over the choir, and it was everything I could do to stifle a laugh and protect my battered ribs.