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

by Hart, Liliana

  I fought with his belt buckle and had just gotten it loose when I looked up and saw a statue of a saint staring straight at us.

  “Ohmigod, stop. We have to stop,” I said, pushing him back with both hands and jumping off his lap.

  “Are you crazy? You can’t just say stop. What’s wrong with you?”

  “We’re in a church,” I whispered. “I can not have sex in a church. My mother would kill me.”

  “I won’t tell her,” he said. “I swear. Now get back over here.”

  “No, aren’t you listening? We’re in a church. And all of these saints are staring at us,” I said horrified.

  “Are you Catholic?” Nick asked.

  “No.”

  “Then it doesn’t count. I think I read that somewhere. And technically we’re not in a church. We’re in a crypt. There’s a difference.”

  “So now we’re not only being disrespectful to God, but to dead people too. Great. We’re going to hell.”

  “I promise if you’ll come back over here I’ll make it worth the trip,” he begged.

  I looked over Nick’s hard body and was sorely tempted. He was laid out on the stone bench like an offering, his chest naked and the bulge behind his zipper swollen to the point that it looked painful. His eyes were clouded with lust and his breath was labored. He looked good enough to eat, and I groaned as I argued my wants against my morals.

  I didn’t have to make a decision because footsteps echoed and a door slammed, and I was so freaked out that someone had just witnessed me commit a mortal sin that I pulled my skirt down and was attempting to get my shirt untangled when a gunshot rang out.

  Nick was off the bench in a split second, his weapon drawn and the lust in his eyes replaced by a look of such intense hardness that I took a step back in fear. He ran towards the sound of the shot, through the door leading to the cemetery, and left me standing by myself in the middle of a bunch of dead guys.

  “Nick!” I screamed and took off after him. I couldn’t decide if I was angry with him for leaving me alone or angry that he’d run full speed ahead toward the sound of gunfire.

  I burst through the crypt door into the graveyard. The rain was back to torrential downpour status and the dark clouds made it hard to see. I couldn’t see Nick, but my adrenaline and fear wouldn’t let me do anything but run full speed ahead. My foot caught on a headstone and I went flying. It was fortunate that it was raining because landing on mud was a lot softer than landing on hard-packed dirt. I sprawled in an ungraceful heap on the graves of Dr. and Mrs. Stanley Took and grimaced as I noticed I’d uprooted the flowers that someone had so carefully planted.

  “Nick!” I called out again.

  I sat in the mud and rain in silence and waited to hear Nick’s voice or footsteps or another gunshot. My teeth chattered, there was mud in places best left unmentioned, and I was close to tears with fear that something bad had happened to Nick.

  “Addison!”

  I heard Nick’s bellow and breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t dead and I wasn’t alone. Things were suddenly looking up.

  I followed the sound of his voice, playing an impromptu game of Marco Polo, until I saw his shadow next to the wrought iron fence that surrounded the cemetery. His gun was still drawn and he was talking on his cell phone requesting an ambulance and back up.

  I looked down at his feet and saw the reason. Victor Mooney was lying face down in the mud, the blossoming blood from a gunshot seeping from his back.

  “Oh my God,” I said as I took a step back.

  Nick hung up the phone and glared at me. “I know you have a hard time thinking before you act, but next time you hear gunshots don’t run full speed ahead into the line of fire until I give you the all clear.”

  “You left me by myself in a room full of dead guys,” I screamed at him. “And besides, you ran full speed ahead into the line of fire.”

  “I’m a cop. I have a gun. That’s what I’m supposed to do,” he yelled back. “I can’t believe this. You’ve made me so crazy that I’m yelling in a graveyard.”

  “You feel bad about yelling in a graveyard after you just tried to have sex with me in a church?” I screeched.

  Nick closed his eyes and was obviously counting to ten many times over. “Listen to me, Addison. As soon as backup arrives I’m going to have an officer escort you to your car, and then I want you to drive straight to Kate’s. Nowhere else. Do you understand?”

  “I’m not going to Kate’s looking like this,” I said. “Why can’t I go home?”

  “Because you’ve been receiving photographs and threatening phone calls and a man you were supposed to meet is lying dead at your feet. Call me crazy, but I think you might be in a little bit of danger, and I don’t feel comfortable sending you home while I’m occupied with a homicide just to have some whacko waiting for you once you open the door. Just do what I ask for once.”

  “Fine.” I squished my way over to a bench so I could wait for my babysitter to arrive.

  I sat in my car with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and watched the rain pound against the windshield. I was soaked to the skin, my skirt was ripped, and blood seeped from both knees. There were scratches on my arms and neck, and my face was blotchy and red from crying. Along with the external wounds, I’d lost a good deal of my sensibilities, most of my faith in mankind, and all of my underwear somewhere between a graveyard and a church parking lot.

  I hadn’t yet found the courage to get out of the car and go into the McClean Detective Agency. I was working my way up to it, but the last time I’d tried to open the door it started to hail and hurricane force winds slammed my door shut. Not to mention the fact that the mud in my crevices was drying at an alarming rate and I might be stuck in this position forever.

  I guess I’d been sitting out front too long because I could see several faces inside peeping out the windows at me, and my cell phone rang in the seat beside me.

  “Are you coming in or are you just going to sit out there looking pitiful all day?” Kate asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet. I’m not allowed to go home, but I’m not sure I have the energy to come inside and explain.”

  “Nick already called and explained, so if you come in I’ll give you some clean clothes and the use of our shower with minimal questions.”

  I sighed into the phone. “That’s the second best proposition I’ve had all day.”

  I disconnected and put on my raincoat just so it would hide the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra. I slogged my way up to the entrance and pushed against the glass doors.

  Lucy Kim came from behind her desk with a stack of gray warm-ups and a bar of soap. Her legs scissored quickly on black spiked heels as she headed in my direction. Her face was expressionless and her lips were freshly painted red. If the mud hadn’t stuck my shoes to the floor I would have backed up because she looked like she wanted to kill someone. Probably me for dripping on the carpet.

  She walked past me without saying a word and stopped in front of a white door with an old-fashioned knob. She held the door open and stared at me with black eyes so intense that I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if they shot lasers or set things on fire.

  I dripped my way over and took the clothes from her. She gave me a firm push with the tip of her finger and slammed the door behind me.

  “It was nice talking to you too,” I yelled through the door.

  The bathroom was spacious and old fashioned. It was obviously for employee use as there were little cubbies that lined one wall with names taped to them. I stood on the cold tile and peeled the clothes from my body and then put them in the trash. They were a lost cause—much like my life.

  I enjoyed a luxurious half hour under the hot spray and borrowed shampoo from a woman named Susan. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t mind. I dried off and dug around in the cabinets until I found a first aid kit. The skin on my palms and knees was rubbed raw from my fall and my arms had scratches on them, so I rubbed on some an
tibacterial cream so I wouldn’t get graveyard germs.

  I put on the sweats and decided I was getting much too comfortable going places without underwear. I tried not to think about how I ended up without it, or when Nick was going to try to make me go without it again.

  I tidied the bathroom and walked in my sock feet down to Kate’s office, feeling like a new woman.

  “I was about to come down and make sure you hadn’t drowned,” Kate said as I plopped face down on the couch in her office.

  “It took a while considering some of the places I had mud.”

  “You’ve also got a nasty case of whisker burn on your neck. I don’t suppose you want to explain that?” Kate asked.

  “Let’s just say things got complicated before we stumbled over the body.”

  “You’d better hope your mother never finds out you had sex in a church.”

  “We didn’t have sex,” I growled.

  “Which would explain why you’re in such a good mood.”

  “No, I’m pretty sure sexual frustration is the least of my problems. I’d say the biggest one is that I keep finding dead bodies.”

  “You don’t think the murders are related, do you?”

  “I don’t know. Mr. Butler didn’t have anything to do with me, but I feel responsible for Mr. Mooney. I guess I should confess that I asked Mr. Mooney to snoop around and keep track of who was going in and out of the Hyatt mansion. And now he’s dead. He said he had information for me, so I’m thinking whatever it was made someone nervous enough to kill him.”

  Kate closed her eyes and looked like she was counting.

  “Is there anything else you need to tell me?” she finally asked.

  I thought back through the last week and grimaced. There was probably a lot I needed to tell Kate, but none of it would make her feel better, so I decided to keep quiet and shook my head no.

  “Well, this is out of our hands now, Addison. It’s up to the police to find out who killed Mr. Mooney and if his death had anything to do with your principal’s. I guess it’s just our luck that Fanny Kimble withdrew her offer for us to investigate John Hyatt. We’ll let the police do their jobs and you can go back to your normal surveillance routine. At least you should be able to stay out of trouble without stumbling across any more bodies.”

  I sat and stared at Kate in shock. She’d gone back to reading the papers on her desk. “Kate, I feel responsible for Mr. Mooney’s death. I’m not just going to stop investigating things because you or Fanny Kimble says so. I’ve got a stake in this, and I’m going to see it through.”

  “Addison, listen to me,” Kate said deliberately enunciating each word, a sure sign she was about to lose her temper. “If you want to work for me then you will do what I say. Period. I’m worried about you, and this is not something you need to stick your nose into. Lord knows, somebody has to keep you out of trouble.”

  I was about to interrupt when she held up a hand to silence me.

  “I also have a business to worry about. A business with a good reputation. If you can’t follow my rules then I will fire you.”

  My mouth opened and closed like a guppy. “You’d really fire me?” I asked, incredulously.

  “In a heartbeat if it meant saving either your life or my business. Do we have an agreement?”

  I looked at Kate closely, but she wasn’t bluffing. She really would fire me.

  “Fine,” I said. “But I can’t promise that I can stay out of it completely. Nick’s already told me he thinks I’m somehow caught in the middle of this mess. All I can do is wait and see if he’s right.”

  “As long as you’re not actively seeking trouble out. Now tell me about these pictures you’ve been getting.”

  “Geez, does Nick tell you everything? What a blabbermouth.”

  “He’s telling me things that I should have heard from you. I don’t like to hear about my employees being stalked, not to mention my best friend.”

  “I don’t know. My gut tells me it’s probably Veronica. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s stooped to such a juvenile level. And the things she said at the Officer’s Gala keep replaying in my mind. She really thinks that I’ve screwed her over, and she’s out for revenge.”

  “Let me do some checking for you. If it’s Veronica I can find out, and believe me when I tell you I can put the fear of God into her.”

  “Thanks,” I said, grateful. “It’ll be nice to have one less thing to worry about.”

  “Just don’t let your guard down,” she warned. “I feel better that Nick told you to stay with me until he can take over. You can come hang out at my house until he gets done with the preliminary investigation. He’ll follow you back home and make sure your apartment is safe. But it could be a little while because he said he was having trouble with Whiskey Bayou’s sheriff.”

  “What’s the problem?” I asked.

  “Jurisdiction. Nick just called in a Crime Scene Team from Savannah and overrode him in that patient way he has. The sheriff wasn’t too happy to have the city boys on his turf.”

  “Can’t blame him. It makes me uncomfortable to have Nick on my turf all the time.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sunday

  Bang, Bang, Bang.

  I groaned as I heard the pounding on the front door and rolled over to look at the clock. It was just past seven in the morning, and I knew if I was awake I’d have to break down and go to church. I wouldn’t be able to use the “I overslept” excuse.

  I pulled the pillow over my head and hoped whoever it was would go away.

  Bang, Bang, Bang.

  I heard the scrape of the lock and sat up in bed. The only person who had a key to my apartment was my mother.

  “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” a familiar voice bellowed out. “We’ve got things to do.”

  Before I could pull the sheets up to hide the fact that I didn’t sleep in pajamas—mostly because I didn’t have air conditioning—Nick opened the door to my bedroom and shut it behind him.

  “Well, well,” he said, his gaze so heated I was lucky my sheets didn’t catch on fire. “It looks like the early bird catches the worms after all.”

  “Do you know what time it is?” I asked him, pulling the sheet higher. “How did you get into my apartment?”

  “I picked the lock.”

  “I assume you have a reason for breaking and entering at this hour. Or maybe I just need to call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing. You’re probably not on the sheriff’s list of favorite people right now.”

  Nick groaned and backed off. “You’d probably do it too,” he said with his hands up in a sign of defeat. “I came by to check up on you and noticed someone left you a gift under your door last night.”

  Nick held up a plain brown envelope sealed with enough packing tape that it could have survived a swim in the Atlantic Ocean.

  I pulled the sheet loose from my bed and tied it around me sarong style. “Let me see that,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “Unh-uh. Make yourself decent, and we’ll take a look.” He pushed me back and shut the bedroom door in my face.

  I threw on a pair of black shorts and a white halter-top and was back out in the living room before he had time to get a pot of coffee going. I’d had it with whoever was leaving me these little gifts. I was pissed and ready to kick ass. I made a mental note to check into taking karate the same time I checked into getting my P.I. license.

  I sat at the little table in my kitchen and waited until Nick brought me a cup of coffee and sat down across from me before holding out my hand for the envelope.

  “Why does this keep happening?”

  “I had officers scheduled to drive by your apartment every hour last night, so someone dropped these off sometime after I followed you home and in between drive-bys. As to why it keeps happening, I have no idea, but I’m getting close. I can feel it.”

  I went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife from the drawer and worked at the top flap, but my hands wer
e shaking so badly from anger and fear that Nick carefully took the knife from me.

  “Let me do it,” he said gently.

  He slit the envelope open, dumped a short stack of photos onto the table and then put the envelope in a freezer size Zip-Loc baggie.

  “Great, more pictures,” I said. “Why do I feel like this is something bigger than an old high school rivalry? Surely Veronica doesn’t hate me this much.”

  “You never know what’s going on inside of other people or how they’ve been affected by the events in their lives. But don’t be naïve in thinking Veronica should be the only suspect on your list. Surely you’ve managed to piss off more than one person in your life,” he said with a quick grin.

  “I’ll have you know I’m a perfectly nice person. Most of the time,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “I want you to look at each photo carefully,” he said, pulling a small notebook and pen out of his jacket pocket. “Are they recent?”

  I picked up the first picture and tried to look at my image dispassionately. I was having dinner with Kate at the Good Luck Café. We’d been in a booth next to a window, and the picture had been taken from outside a good distance away. “We have dinner like this a couple of times a month,” I said, shaking my head. “This could have been taken last year or in the last two weeks.”

  “Look closely, Addison. Look at your hairstyle and the kind of clothes your wearing. Do you think it’s possible it was last year?”

  I did as he asked and tried to focus on the details. My hair looked the same as it did now, which meant it was a recent photograph. At this time last year I’d had blond highlights in my hair and it had been several inches shorter. “Okay,” I said, exhaling in relief that I hadn’t been stalked and clueless for more than a year. “This is recent. Within the last couple of months I’d say.”

  I grabbed the rest of the photos and looked at them all. Me at the dry cleaners. Me at a high school basketball game. Me at the park with my mother. All recent. I was sure of it. “These are, too,” I said.