Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
BUBBLES IS “BLONDER AND BRASSIER THAN EVER”* IN BUBBLES BETROTHED
“Delightfully goofy.”
—*Publishers Weekly
“A corking mystery.”
—People
“Wild action, crazy humor, and lively prose will engage
Bubbles fans as well as Stephanie Plum buffs.
Recommended.”
—Library Journal
“A delicious stew of romance, murder, and slapstick confusion.”
—Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine
“BUBBLES IS A GIRLFRIEND EVERY WOMAN NEEDS”* IN BUBBLES A BROAD
“Bubbles Yablonsky is a woman after my heart. She’s tacky, sexy, lovable, has a weakness for handsome men, and she’s wacky. Her reasoning will have you holding your sides from laughing so hard. . . . I can’t wait for her next adventure.”
—*Rendezvous
“Strohmeyer’s sharp dialogue gives her fourth an edge even Bubbles’s clippers can’t match.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Strohmeyer expertly plays Bubbles’s blue-collar working-class background against the monolithic Lehigh Steel’s country club types and their wives. . . . Bubbles may be Two Guys’ “Biggest Loser Ever,” but she’s good-hearted, persistent, and very, very funny.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A pacy, racy, witty roller coaster of a read, with enough plot twists to keep you guessing to the last page.”
—Marian Keyes, author of Angels
“BUBBLES IS HOT, HOT, HOT”* IN BUBBLES ABLAZE
“Sarah Strohmeyer’s wicked wit and playful intelligence light up the pages of Bubbles Ablaze.”
—*Claire Cook, Author of Must Love Dogs and Multiple Choice
“As much effervescent fun as its heroine’s name.”
—Meg Cabot, Author of the Princess Diaries novels and The Boy Next Door
“Relentlessly funny. I love it!”
—Linda Lael Miller, New York Times bestselling author
“Reminiscent of My Big Fat Greek Wedding with a Polish twist, this book will keep you in stitches.”
—Romantic Times
“The dumb-blonde shtick works well with the whole loony business, and Strohmeyer’s sharp eye for styles and regional details (Tastykakes, scrapple) adds to the realism and the charm.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Better-than-usual mystery beneath the manic-as-usual Strohmeyer mayhem.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“BUBBLES IS BACK AND EVERY BIT AS FLASHY”* IN BUBBLES IN TROUBLE
“There’s a lot to be said for silly that’s done so very well.”
—*Houston Chronicle
“An amazing heroine . . . what a hoot!”
—Mystery News
“A doozy. . . . [Strohmeyer] has a gift for snappy prose and comic timing . . . amusing subplots, rollicking fun, and enough peril and romance to raise the pulse. . . . This frothy, funny fiction is a great escape.”
—Seven Days (Burlington, VT)
“This is one to take to the pool.”
—St. Petersburg Times
“THERE IS A RIOTOUS WORLD WAITING”* IN BUBBLES UNBOUND
Winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Mystery
“Bubbles is fun, and so is Strohmeyer’s book.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Possibly the first novel of its kind to offer beauty tips.”
—The Boston Globe
“Fizzy as a bicarb, funny as Evanovich. Should bubble right to the top of the mystery bestseller lists.”
—Carolyn Hart, New York Times bestselling author
“A strong debut.”
—*Houston Chronicle
“A sexy, irrepressible heroine, riotous supporting characters.”
—Library Journal
“In an era of pluckier-than-thou females, a nitwit heroine could be a welcome change. Enter Bubbles Yablonsky—a breath of fresh air.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Also by Sarah Strohmeyer
The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives
The Cinderella Pact
The Bubbles Series
Bubbles Unbound
Bubbles in Trouble
Bubbles Ablaze
Bubbles A Broad
Bubbles Betrothed
ONYX
Published by New American Library, a division of
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First published by Onyx, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, November 2006
Copyright © Sarah Strohmeyer, 2006
eISBN : 978-1-101-09913-1
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To Mary Alice Gorman, owner of the fabulous
Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania,
an advocate for many notable causes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book could not have been written without the assistance of Luci Zahray, the “Poison Lady,” Gun Tart Nancie Hayes, who gives new meaning to the term “going ballistic,” and Stephanie Cotterman, a Bubbleshead who has on more than one occasion come to my aid. Nancy Martin, author of the sizzling Blackbird Sisters mysteries, held my hand through most of this, as did Ellen Edwards, one of the few remaining editors who still meticulously go over each manuscript. Plus, Ellen did a bang-up job in record time. Thank you! It was Charlaine Harris, author of so many engrossing books, including the bestselling Sookie Stackhouse vampire series, who suggested trying Bubbles as a paperback original. And Kathy Sweeney encouraged a radical twist to Bubbles’s life. Finally, thank you, Charlie, Anna, and Sam, for cheerfully and willingly tolerating what turned out to be one hellish year.
Chapter One
Debbie Shatsky was the kind of woman that I, Bubbles Yablonsky, loved to loathe.
Just the way she entered a room was obnoxious, pounding her superhigh heels and blinking her big, overdone eyes as though she expected everyone to admire her expensive, genuine leather department store shoes. Or her LOUD VOICE and high-pitched giggle that forced you to pay attention even if you were trying your best not to.
But nothing aggravated me as much as her constant and incessant bragging.
Debbie showed no reservation when it came to boasting about how perfect her life was, how well decorated her house, what unbelievable sales she got at Hess’s the rest of us had missed, and how her travel business allowed her to visit the most exotic locations free of charge. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But the thing—or, rather, the man—she bragged about most was her husband, plumber Phil Shatsky. A colorless, weak-chinned doughboy who could install a whirlpool tub in the bathroom while whipping up a mean crème brûlée in the kitchen. It was enough to make a middle-aged woman go all crazy, thinking about Phil with an apron on, scrubbing the stove and—pant—matching socks from the laundry.
And those weren’t the only devastatingly sexy stunts in Phil’s repertoire. He also took out the garbage without being asked, vacuumed the house twice a week, swirled Ti-Dee Bowl in the toilets, scraped leaves from the gutters and did all the grocery shopping—with coupons!
Plus, he never, ever watched televised sports.
On this the female population in our steel town of Lehigh, Pennsylvania, agreed: you could keep your George Clooney; give us a Phil Shatsky any day. Phil Shatsky was a Swiffer-bearing god above all men.
Unfortunately, Deb’s favorite place to brag about Phil happened to be in our little pink-walled salon, the House of Beauty, where innocent clients were forced to listen to Phil’s feats of greatness, held captive, as they were, by their noble pursuit of beautiful hair and all the strenuous sitting that is required.
“I feel kind of sorry for everyone else, not having husbands who dote on them like Phil does me,” Debbie prattled as Sandy and I slaved over her complicated up do. “I mean, I married the perfect guy. You have to admit, I’m the luckiest woman alive.”
“You’re the luckiest woman alive,” Sandy had to admit.
“I just know other women hate me for it.”
“I’m sure no one hates you.” Sandy smeared on some glue and affixed another champagne blond hair extension to Debbie’s scalp so Debbie could have the biggest hair at the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local #10 annual Christmas ball that evening. “Right, Bubbles?”
I was pretty sure people hated Debbie, so I didn’t say anything. If you can’t say something nice about a person, then sit next to me, was the way my mother’s favorite saying went.
Besides, Debbie wasn’t my client, so I wasn’t obligated to suck up. I no longer worked at the House of Beauty, now that I was a full-time reporter at the News-Times . The only reason I was there was because my former boss and forever best friend, Sandy, was swamped. It was the Christmas season, her busiest time of the year. Also, the nuttiest.
This was when Sandy lost all control and turned the House of Beauty into Santa’s crack house. Blinking lights were strung everywhere. Tinsel dangled from every mirror. Mistletoe hung over every doorway. There was not just one normal-sized Christmas tree, but three, including a miniature one covered in red-and-green-foil Hershey Kisses that Sandy kept by her register. Not to mention the maniacal plastic Kris Kringles smiling from every window.
And if that weren’t enough to cause permanent brain damage, consider that the standard House of Beauty smog of Final Net and nail polish fumes was mixed with Lysol Holiday Pine Breeze. Don’t even get me started on the music. If I never again hear Karen Carpenter whine “Merry Christmas, Darling,” it won’t be too soon.
Sandy gave me one of her meaningful stares, an ocular order to play along with Debbie’s need for reassurance. My best friend was under a lot of pressure these days to keep customers happy now that a competing salon—Jeffrey Andre—had opened up in our newly revitalized “warehouse” district. I understood what she needed me to say.
“Of course no one hates you, Debbie. Sandy’s right.”
Sandy mouthed, Thank you.
“You’re only saying that because you don’t know Marguerite,” Debbie said.
“Marguerite?”
“This desperate housewife who’s trying to get her claws into my husband, though as far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t stand a chance of spit in a windstorm. I mean, Phil choose someone over me? Puhleese. Marguerite would have to step over my dead body first.”
I tried not to strangle her as she smiled approvingly at her reflection in the mirror.
Debbie took a sip of bottled water and continued chattering. “Have I ever told you Phil does the laundry? He does. Folds and puts away. Pretreats, too. Plus, he even watches Lifetime with me. I can’t tell you how many nights we’ve spent in front of the TV, Phil and I, crying our eyes out over some Victoria Principal movie. And the next thing I know, there we are making the kind of passionate, toe-curling love you only see in those videos. He even lets me sleep on the dry side of the bed afterward.”
Was it hot in here? I shifted my feet. Sandy’s pupils were dilated, imagining a night of masculine laundry folding, Lifetime viewing and dry-sheet sleeping.
“Yessirree, Phil and I are bound to one another till death do us part.”
Sandy’s eyes met mine. She didn’t have to speak, I knew what she was thinking: Till death do us part, Bubbles.
Sandy had been on my case lately because I’d ruined all chances of marrying my own soul mate, the devastatingly sexy Associated Press photographer Steve Stiletto. He of the flashing blue eyes and the tight, creased jeans. The one man who could make my heart stop with a knowing look, the brush of his hand, the suggestive twitch of his lips.
The first time I met Stiletto we were thrown together on an assignment to cover a “jumper” from the Philip J. Fahy Bridge. I knew it was trouble when Stiletto not only violated police orders by climbing onto the bridge, but also positioned himself on a precipice fifty feet above the Lehigh River—just so he could get a great shot of my legs. Also of me falling over the edge.
Of course, any man like that is full of himself, an egotist, overconfident and
infamous for having brief, fiery relationships with foolish women. Of course, I was madly in love with him.
What Sandy couldn’t understand was why I’d turned down Stiletto’s marriage proposal (and returned his three-carat Harry Winston ring) so I could remarry my ex-husband, Dan, aka “Chip,” Ritter.
What Sandy didn’t know was that Dan was blackmailing me.
How to describe Dan. He’s a lawyer, though not what you’d call high caliber, seeing as he has already been disbarred once and kicked out of his firm with a court order never to return. Plus, he advertises on urinals. How classy is that?
These days he’s a personal-injury attorney who habitually leaves his business card on icy parking lots, on grocery aisle floors where Tide’s been spilled (by him, no doubt) or any place where a slip and a fall could mean bucks in his pocket.
I had to remarry Dan for one reason and one reason only. I got pregnant—eighteen years ago.
And now our seventeen-year-old daughter, Jane, was going through a serious crisis from being kidnapped last month. After much analysis, the family counselor we’d been seeing, Dr. Lori Caswell, decided the blame for Jane’s trauma lay with me and me only. I am, in her professional opinion, an unfit mother, a selfish career woman who through negligence and risk exposed Jane to an extraordinarily nasty crime.
According to Dr. Caswell, I lack even the basic skills of mothering since I let Jane live on A-Treat and Tastykakes and allowed her to pierce several body parts and wear ripped jeans to school. Add to that my licentious relationship with Stiletto, our many nights in his mansion achieving sexual heights that in some parts of Georgia are grounds for imprisonment, and it was a wonder the division of family services hadn’t knocked on my door sooner.
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