“If you make it to Thanksgiving without tripping over another dead body, I’ll be amazed. Happy, but amazed.”
She smiled. “Piece of cake.”
HARLEY ATTENDED Felicia Cleveland’s funeral. Jordan was there, in cuffs, stone-faced except for his eyes. They were wet, tear tracks on his cheeks. He’d given the police a statement about his involvement in everything, how he’d stolen the money, his plan to kill his wife for the insurance. He’d chickened out, just like Morgan said, but the guys he owed the money to weren’t about to let him pass on it. Streeter was at the party, disguised as a fireman, and he’d killed Felicia. It’d been easy enough for him. He’d told her Jordan was sick and needed her, and she’d rushed to the tiny cemetery just to end up a part of it.
It had been Streeter who managed to snag Harley’s phone, intending to lure her to the cemetery. But she frustrated that attempt by sticking so close to Tootsie after the scare at his house. Then Streeter saw his chance while they were cleaning up after the party. He sabotaged her bike and waited. Harvey Fine—not his real name, she learned—knew that Streeter was up to something, but he didn’t know what. If not for his phone call, Streeter would have had enough time to fill in the hole he’d dug earlier in the day, burying her completely. He wanted Felicia found quickly, but not Harley.
There were details she’d never know for sure, but just knowing what she did was enough to give her nightmares. Some judge of character she’d turned out to be! She’d been certain Streeter was just a nice businessman, while Harvey Fine was a killer.
After the funeral she and Tootsie went to his house. Neither one of them had too much to say. It hadn’t been easy watching Felicia’s family grieve for their daughter and sister. It wasn’t even easy seeing Jordan’s distress.
“Even knowing what he did,” said Tootsie as he poured coffee into a cup, “I felt sorry for him. You know?”
Harley nodded. “He got in over his head when he decided to steal from crooks. Whoever said there was honor among thieves didn’t know what they were talking about.”
“You’ve got that right, girlfriend. So where’s your gorgeous honey today?”
Grateful for the change of topic, she said, “He promised to be at my house around six or seven tonight. We’re going out on a date.”
“On a date? What kind of date?”
“I’m not sure. He won’t tell me. I just hope it doesn’t involve football and mud. Or loud trucks and mud. Or anything with mud. I’ve realized I’m not that much into mud these days.”
“Are you going to dress up?”
“I would, but my crown and velvet robes are at the cleaners. No, I’m not going to dress up. That’s your gig, not mine. I like casual.”
Tootsie lifted a brow. “One of these days you may change your mind and decide you’re a girl.”
“I’m a girl. I just don’t like to be too girly.”
“No danger of you being that anytime soon. I wonder if Morgan ever misses short skirts and push-up bras?”
Harley drained the last of her coffee and put her cup in the sink. “If he does, he hides it well. Besides, I have some Victoria’s Secret lingerie he likes to see me model.”
Tootsie laughed. “That would make up for it.”
On the way home, Harley thought about what Tootsie said. Maybe Mike did miss having a girlfriend who wore sexy clothes. He’d never said anything, but maybe he felt that way.
By the time Morgan arrived at her apartment, Harley was in a nervous frenzy. She’d taken out and discarded no less than seven outfits before settling on a short skirt and silk blouse. Now she thought about changing again. It just didn’t look right. Even her hair looked weird. Instead of her nice spikes, she’d tortured it into softer curves that came down on each side of her face. It was too short to do anything else with, so she’d clipped a glittery barrette above each ear to hold it up and added earrings Cami had given her for Christmas the year before. They were drop earrings with green crystals that made her eyes look really bright. She’d applied makeup, eye shadow, a couple layers of mascara, some foundation and even blush along her cheekbones, then red lipstick to match her velvet skirt and red velvet boots.
When she heard him come in the door she stuffed her feet into short boots with high heels, smoothed the skirt that was clinging to her with static electricity, and waltzed out of her bedroom like she dressed up every day. Morgan didn’t say anything. He just looked at her with wide eyes and a wider smile. Apparently Tootsie was right. It figured. He would know what a man liked.
“Hey, copper,” she said, and managed her sexiest walk across the room. “Care to frisk me for contraband?”
“You’ve made that offer before,” he said, and there was a gleam in his eyes. “I think this time I might take you up on it.”
“We have a date,” she said when he pulled her to him, and got a little breathless when he smoothed her skirt over her hips with one hand. “Where are we going?”
“Well, I had planned to take you to meet my parents, but I’m rethinking that about now.”
Her heart went into arrhythmia at the thought. “What?” she croaked. “Meet your parents? Why?”
“They keep reading about you, and I wanted to show them you’re not that crazy woman who falls over bodies all the time. They worry I’ve fallen in with bad company.”
“They know you’re a cop, right? That you hang around with criminals every day? They know that, right?”
Morgan started unbuttoning her white silk blouse. “They do. What’s this? A push-up bra? Have you been shopping?”
Harley started to say it wasn’t any of his business, and that she didn’t want to go meet his parents, and that she was going to go change clothes. That’s what she started to say. What she ended up saying was totally different. That was Morgan’s fault. He had her blouse off and her skirt pushed up before she catch her breath.
There were definitely times that being a girl had its perks.
(Please continue reading for more about Virginia Brown)
About Virginia Brown
As a long-time resident of Mississippi, award-winning author Virginia Brown has lived in several different areas of the state, and finds the history, romance, and intrigue of the Deep South irresistible. Although having spent her childhood as a “military brat” living all over the US, and overseas, this author of nearly fifty novels is now happily settled in and drawing her favorite fictional characters from the wonderful, whimsical Southerners she has known and loved.
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