A Poison Manicure & Peach Liqueur
Page 20
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I shoved the crutch that the emergency room doctor had given me into the backseat of my 1965 cherry red Mustang convertible and winced as I climbed gingerly into the front seat. The pain in my sprained knee was intense, but it was nothing compared to the ache in my heart. I reached into my bag for my car keys but pulled out my phone instead. I glanced at the time on the display: 7:30 a.m. If I knew my workaholic best friend Veronica Maggio, she was already toiling away at her new detective agency. I debated waiting to call her until after I'd had some time to sleep on the devastating events of the night shift, but I decided that I'd rest a whole lot easier knowing how she was going to react to my news. So I scrolled through my contacts, tapped her name and held my breath.
"Private Chicks, Incorporated," Veronica answered, her voice unnaturally clipped and professional. "If you give us the time, we'll solve your crime. What can I help you with?"
I tried to pretend she was next door instead of five hundred lonely miles away in New Orleans. "Do you always answer the phone that way?"
"In this economic climate, you have to be aggressive, Franki. You always have to be ready to give your thirty-second elevator pitch. Even when you're answering the phone." Unlike me, Veronica was extremely practical and all business. Though, no one could tell that about her at first glance because she looked and acted a lot like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde—petite, blonde, perky and perfectly put together at all times—only she had a cream Pomeranian named Hercules instead of a tan Chihuahua named Bruiser. Veronica was everything I wasn't, and that was putting it mildly.
"Maybe," I responded. "But I don't know about the 'If you give us the time' part. It makes it sound like it could take you a while to solve a case."
"It's an expression, Franki. It means that if you hire us, we'll solve your case."
"I suppose."
There was an awkward pause.
"Is something wrong?" Veronica asked.
I did my utmost to feign surprise. "Why on earth would you think that?"
"Because you're doing everything you can to avoid telling me why you called."
"I called because I've decided to take you up on your offer to join your PI firm. I'm moving to New Orleans."
"Really? What about Vince? And your job?"
"Vince and I aren't together anymore." There. I said it. And it had hurt.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Let's just say that I was in a committed relationship, but he wasn't."
"I'm sorry, Franki."
"Me too," I whispered, wiping away tears with the back of my hand.
"But I really hope you're not leaving your job because of Vince."
"He's got nothing to do with it," I fibbed. If I told her that I discovered Vince's betrayal thanks to a 911 call, she would never believe that I was leaving the force because it was the right thing to do. "The hard truth is that I'm just not cut out for the police force. I gave my two weeks' notice this morning."
"Are you kidding? You're a born cop, Franki. I mean, you still need some experience and all, but you come from a Sicilian family, and you grew up in Houston. If you don't know crime, who does?" she joked, trying to raise my spirits.
"Verrrry funny. Need I remind you that you're half Sicilian too?" I asked, half-heartedly playing along.
"Yeah, but I'm also half Swedish, which tempers the Italian-ness considerably. You've got it on both sides, so you're screwed."
"You're just a laugh a minute, you know that? I tell you what, let's leave ethnicity out of this," I replied, as though I believed that were possible. Veronica and I had bonded as pre-law students at the University of Texas—not over our criminology classes, but over all things Italian: our Italian language courses, our families, endless bottles of Chianti and, of course, Gucci, Prada, Armani and Dolce and Gabbana (in Cosmopolitan and Vogue, that is). "I might have the makings of a good cop, but that doesn't mean I belong on the police force."
"This doesn't have anything to do with your trusty partner, does it? What happened this time? Did the diarrhea king leave you high and dry again?"
"Something like that." I thought of Petra heaving me repeatedly into the air and rubbed my wounded knee. "But Stan's not really the issue. I need to get off the night shift and return to the world of the living. And I want a job that's a little more predictable. As a private investigator, I'd have some say in the cases I take." And in the situations I find myself in.
"Do you regret going to the police academy after UT instead of law school?"
"You know I had no choice. I wanted to prove to my family that women could do more than make pasta and birth babies."
"I know," Veronica said. "But I still stay that becoming a cop was taking rebellion to the extreme."
"It was the best way I could think of to show them that I was as tough and capable as any man. Besides," I added, eager to change the subject from my family, "you weren't happy as an attorney, and I knew that I wouldn't have been either, especially not as a criminal defense attorney. I want to catch criminals, not defend or prosecute them. If I work for you, I can still do that but in a less restrictive environment. I can be my own boss. You know, call my own shots and that sort of thing."
"I certainly understand wanting to be your own boss. But aren't you going to feel like you've proven your family right by leaving the force?"
"They'll probably see it that way," I said. "But I'm just going to have to figure out a way to prove them wrong."
"Okay," she said, although she didn't sound convinced. "As long as you're sure that you're leaving Austin for the right reasons, then I could really use your help down here."
"I'm sure, Veronica. Austin was a great place to go to school, but now I need to move on. And with the New Year just two weeks away, it's the perfect time to start a new life."
"And just in time for Mardi Gras. Laissez les bons temps rouler!"
"Oui, cher!" I cheered in the Cajun custom—but with a joie de vivre that I definitely didn't feel.
LIMONCELLO YELLOW
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Table of Contents
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
CHRISTMAS COCKTAILS AND COCOA
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