Damn.
The noise from the audience awaiting the fashion show diminished slightly and I saw Jeanette climbing onto the stage.
If ever I needed something good to happen to me, it was now. I absolutely had to get third place in the customer service contest, and get that Starbucks gift card. Things had to get better.
Then my night got worse.
My cell phone vibrated in my back pocket. It was Mom.
“It’s the most fabulous news yet,” she declared when I answered.
Jeez, what could another one of my cousins have done that was more fabulous than the news Mom had already shared with me?
Nothing, I decided. There couldn’t possibly be anything grander that Mom could report. This day was not going to get any worse.
“You know your cousin who took that photography class on a whim?” Mom asked.
I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Well, she’s a natural. Sought after by everyone,” Mom said. “And guess what? She’s been invited to Buckingham Palace to photograph little Prince George and Princess Charlotte.”
I hung up.
Sandy rushed over and grabbed my arm. “Hey, come on. Jeanette’s about to announce the winners of the customer service contest.”
Thank God, something good.
We wormed our way through the crowd that surrounded the stage. Employees were gathered in the aisles along with customers who hadn’t gotten a seat. Jeanette was explaining the contest to the audience.
“I tried really hard on the test,” Sandy whispered. “I hope I win second place.”
“Yeah?” I said. “What’s the second place prize?”
Bella raised an eyebrow at me. “You mean you really don’t know?”
“I’m shooting for third,” I told her.
Bella just shook her head.
I got a weird feeling.
“And now,” Jeanette said, “I’m pleased to announce the winner of the first annual Holt’s customer service contest.”
Sandy held out crossed-fingers on both hands and whispered, “But if I win first place, it will be okay. I’ll give it to my grandma.”
My weird feeling got weirder.
“And the first place winner is…” Jeanette drew an envelope from her jacket pocket and made a show of prying it open. “Haley Randolph!”
Applause broke out. Everybody turned and stared at me.
Oh my God, what had just happened? I’d won first place? First place?
Was this my worst nightmare come true? I actually knew something about Holt’s customer service?
And not only that, but I knew more about it than anyone else in the store?
“Come on up here, Haley,” Jeanette called, smiling and waving me over.
I couldn’t move.
“She’s clearly overwhelmed,” Jeanette said to the audience. “So I’ll let her absorb her big win. It’s really exciting.”
“Sorry, Haley,” Sandy mumbled.
Bella shook her head sorrowfully.
“Because,” Jeanette said, “the first place prize that Haley has just won is our entire new spring collection!”
Oh, crap.
The End
Dear Reader:
There’s more mystery out there! If you enjoyed this novella, check out the other books in my Haley Randolph series. You might also like my Dana Mackenzie series featuring an amateur sleuth who takes on the faceless corporation she works for while solving murders. The first chapter of Fatal Luck is included in this book.
Would you like to add a little romance to your life? I also write historical romance novels under the name Judith Stacy. An excerpt from The Last Bride in Texas, a Rita Award finalist published by Harlequin Historicals, is also included.
Thanks for adding my books to your library and recommending me to your friends and family.
Happy reading!
Dorothy
DorothyHowellNovels.com
Here’s a sneak peek at Fatal Luck, a Dana Mackenzie Mystery novella.
Excerpt from Fatal Luck
Sometimes you get lucky.
I’m not talking about sex—although that topic came up often. No, I’m talking about actual luck, good luck—kismet, serendipity, the fortuitous alignment of the planets. Thankfully, my mojo was working pretty well because it kept me from witnessing a murder.
Not bad for a Monday morning.
I’m Dana Mackenzie. I worked for Mid-America Financial Services, a nationwide consumer finance company that granted personal loans, home equity mortgages, and some dealer financing for things like TVs, stereos, and furniture.
Mid-America made loans to just about anybody for just about anything. The tricky part wasn’t lending out the money, of course, it was collecting it back. That’s where I came in.
A lot of people thought this was not a good way for a 27-year-old single female to spend her days. Sometimes, I agreed.
Mid-America had about a thousand branch offices nationwide, one of which was located a few miles away in Santa Flores where I worked. Another was here in Bonita, a city that adjoined Santa Flores, where I was starting my Monday morning. Like most of Southern California, the two cities melted into each other, indistinguishable except for lines drawn on a map.
The Bonita branch was located in a strip mall that housed an insurance office, a hair salon, a gift shop, a deli, and four empty store fronts. I stopped by as needed to pick up real estate appraisal reports on my way into the office that I called home for eight-plus hours a day, down on Fifth Street.
I could have gone straight into the insurance office where the appraiser, an old guy named Jerry Donavan, rented a tiny space, but I was acquainted with everyone who worked in Mid-America’s Bonita branch, and it would be rude not stop in and say hello.
Besides, I could get a coffee there and it was a good reason to keep from going to my own branch.
I swung into the alley behind the Bonita branch on State Street, parked, and got out. A little early morning sunlight seeped through the overcast November sky, giving the air a crisp autumn feel—or at least the closest we here in Southern California got to it—making it perfect weather for the pants, blouse and blazer I had on.
Employees of the Bonita branch groused about the location of their office—which had been selected by a guy in our home office in Chicago using a Google images search, apparently. In yet another flash of corporate brilliance, the strip mall on State Street, a major artery in the area, had been selected because of its signage and accessibility. Nobody bothered to look at the rear of the property, however.
The employee parking lot was small, separated from the rear of the building by a narrow alley that ran the length of the strip mall. The one security light offered little illumination, and the two Dumpsters drew scavengers and the homeless. A tall block wall covered with graffiti separated the parking lot from an apartment complex known for drug activity.
Leave it to Corporate.
The rear door to the Mid-America office was propped open a few inches, so I walked inside. With drug dealers in the area and questionable people roaming the alley, you’d think they’d keep the door locked.
I guess the branch manager thought that if employees faced a locked door in the morning, they might turn around and go back home.
Maybe he had a point.
The rear entrance led into the office’s stock room which was filled with shelves of supplies and boxes of old documents; the restroom and a breakroom were off to the left. The door that led into the office stood open. The corporate decorator had played it fast and loose, painting the walls off-white, throwing down beige carpet, and selecting neutral colored desks and chairs.
Gloria Colton, the branch assistant manager, poked her head out of the breakroom.
“Oh. Dana. It’s just you,” she mumbled, then disappeared again.
Gloria had to be in her late thirties but already looked as if she were losing the battle against aging. Short, round everywhere, with hair that
resembled a bale of hay and skin similar in texture to an American Tourister carry-on, she looked as if she’d attempted every beauty treatment known to womankind, and each and every one had failed.
Gloria was a bit of a failure herself, from the rumors I’d heard. She’d been with Mid-America for over ten years and had been repeatedly passed over for promotion to branch manager. She’d transferred to branch after branch all over Southern California and, somehow, she’d landed here at the Bonita office a few months ago.
I tried to like her, but the best I could do was tolerate her.
Gloria walked out of the breakroom with a steaming cup, passed me, and went into the office without speaking.
“I’ll just have a quick cup of coffee,” I called, to show her what good manners sounded like.
She didn’t bother to look back.
It was much too early in the day to get annoyed, I decided. Besides, the coffee smelled great.
I stepped into the breakroom, a tiny place barely big enough for the table and four chairs, the mini-fridge, and the counter with a sink and microwave. It had the same look and smell of every other breakroom I’d been in. Coffee cup rings on the counter, cups and spoons that never seemed clean but were used anyway.
I found a mug in the cupboard and was reaching for the pot when I heard the roar of a car engine, followed by screaming.
I ran to the back door. Across the parking lot standing next to her car was Janine Ferris, the office’s asset manager, screaming hysterically.
On the ground in the center of the alley lay an odd bundle of something. A few second passed before I realized it was a man.
“Call 9-1-1! Somebody got hit by a car in the alley!” I shouted to Gloria, and sprinted outside.
I rushed to the man lying on the pavement. Blood poured from what was left of his skull. I knew I couldn’t do anything to help him.
I turned away and looked up and down the alley in both directions. No sign of the car that had hit him. Nobody had stopped, pulled over, gotten out. Whoever had done this had kept going.
Janine continued screaming. She’d gone white, yet her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide with horror.
I jogged across the alley.
“Janine? Janine!” I said.
She kept shrieking.
My people skills aren’t the best, and all I could think to do was to grab her shoulders and give her a little shake.
“Why! Oh, my God! Why would anybody do that!” She screamed the words in my face. “Oh, my God! Poor Jerry!”
“Jerry?”
I whipped back to the body in the alley. Bits of broken glass shimmered in the sunlight. A stack of blood soaked papers fluttered in the breeze. I tilted my head left, then right. The height and gray hair, the gut hanging over the belt looked familiar.
“Oh, my God,” I mumbled. “Jerry.”
Jerry Donavan, the appraiser I’d come here to meet.
I guess his mojo wasn’t working at all this morning.
“Why! Oh, my God! Why would somebody do that!” Janine shrieked. “Deliberately run him over!”
I looked up and down the alley again. It flashed in my head that whoever had hit Jerry might have gone into some sort of shock, which was understandable, but would grasp reality in a minute or so, turn around and come back. But there was no sign of a car returning to the scene.
“Oh, my God!” Janine screamed. “How could somebody do that! Just run over somebody! Why would anybody want to kill him?”
Obviously, Janine didn’t know Jerry Donavan as well as I did because I wondered just the opposite.
Why wouldn’t somebody want to kill him?
Here’s a sneak peek at the historical romance The Last Bride in Texas.
Excerpt from The Last Bride in Texas
Texas, 1882
Of all the times for the bank to get robbed.
Connor Wade shook his head in disgust as he gazed out the window of the Cattleman’s Cafe. He’d just ridden into this town, just sat down to his first hot meal in weeks, and this had to happen.
Across the street in front of the bank, one would-be robber hunkered down behind a water trough while another took cover inside the bank doorway, both with pistols blazing.
Connor scraped the last bite of potatoes from his plate and leaned closer to the window. To his right, just down the street, the sheriff returned fire from behind a freight wagon.
“Damn fools...” Connor muttered, pushing the plate aside and biting into his apple pie.
These robbers must have been green as new-mowed hay. Noon was the worst time to hit a bank. They’d left their horses too far away. And they’d picked a bank within sight of the sheriff’s office.
Connor mumbled another curse. Without a doubt, the worst planned robbery he’d ever seen. And he’d seen his share of robberies.
More than his share, really.
Connor brought his coffee cup to his lips, then stared into it. Empty.
“Excuse me?” he called.
The woman who, judging from the size of her waist, owned the cafe huddled with four other diners around the front door, watching the commotion through the glass window. Connor looked around. He was the only one still eating.
And the only one who wanted more coffee, it seemed.
“Ma’am?” he called, raising his cup. “Could I get more coffee over here?”
Noses pressed against the glass window, whispering and pointing, they ignored him.
“Ma’am? Excuse me?” he called again.
No response.
“Dammit...”
All he wanted was a cup of coffee to finish off his pie. Was that asking too much?
Connor frowned at the crowd gawking out the window. Apparently, it was.
Connor dropped his cup on the table with a thud, dragged the napkin across his mouth and pushed to his feet.
“Stand aside,” he called, crossing the cafe.
The two men and three women gathered at the door looked back at him. One of the men had gone white, and two of the women looked like they might faint.
Connor leaned down and peered out the window. The two robbers, their attention focused on the sheriff, weren’t likely to notice him from this angle. Connor doubted they were smart enough to keep watch.
Around the corner in the alley, out of the sheriff’s line of sight, Connor saw their horses. Three of them. That meant another robber was still inside the bank. One more robber the sheriff probably didn’t know about.
Connor pulled his black Stetson hat lower on his forehead and opened the door.
“You can’t go out there, mister!” one of the men exclaimed. “There’s a shoot-out a-going on!”
Connor looked back over his shoulder. “Fill up my coffee cup while I’m gone, will you?”
He stepped onto the boardwalk. Behind him, the door slammed shut.
The midday sunlight reflected off the glass storefronts lining both sides of the dusty street. Shots rang out. Horses tethered to the hitching posts tossed their heads and pawed the ground. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air.
Connor held his position outside the cafe. The bank was across the street, two doors off to his right. The sheriff, behind the freight wagon, was farther down the street. Their attention fixed on the sheriff, the robbers didn’t see Connor.
He drew his Colt .45, took aim and squeezed off a shot. The bullet drilled the hand of the robber leaning out the bank’s doorway. The gun flew from his hand. Connor put another shot into his shoulder, sending him sprawling across the boardwalk.
Connor fired again. This shot buried into the thigh of the robber hiding behind the water trough. He yelped, dropped his gun, grabbed his leg and fell sideways.
Echoes of the gunshots bounced off the wooden buildings along Main Street. A numb silence fell over the town.
Connor didn’t move. Both men were down, but it wasn’t over yet. He stood his ground, arm extended, pistol trained on the entrance of the bank. Waiting.
From the corne
r of his eye, Connor saw the sheriff lower his rifle and move out from behind the freight wagon.
A mistake.
The third robber burst out of the bank. Connor adjusted his aim, ready to squeeze off another shot.
Instead, he froze. The robber had a hostage.
“Damn...” Connor muttered.
A woman. Young. Dark skirt, white blouse, pink shawl around her shoulders, a little hat set in her brown hair. The robber wrapped his left arm across her shoulders, holding her in front of him, pressing her back against his chest. The barrel of his pistol prodded her temple.
This bandit looked like the other two Connor had already shot. Not much more than a kid, dressed in dusty clothes and a battered hat. Young and stupid, but dangerous.
The robber focused his attention on the sheriff, unaware that it was Connor who’d shot the other two members of the gang.
“I’ll kill her!” he screamed.
The man inched backward down the boardwalk toward the horses waiting in the alley. To Connor’s surprise, the woman stayed calm. No crying or sniveling. She didn’t even tremble.
Raising his pistol, Connor took careful aim and squeezed off another shot. The bullet blew by the robber’s head. Just where he wanted it.
The robber jumped. He turned. He saw Connor.
The woman turned, too. Her gaze met his. Connor hadn’t meant to look at her, hadn’t wanted to break his concentration. But it was too late.
Big blue eyes bored into him. Now he saw her fear, the terror etched in the tight line of her mouth and in the furrow of her brow. It arrowed through him, overwhelmed him, held him captive for a few seconds.
A few seconds too many.
The barrel of the robber’s gun swung toward Connor, aiming square at his chest. The hammer clicked back.
Connor fired first.
The bullet impacted the robber’s shoulder. Blood jetted out, splashing the woman’s cheek, her neck, her shawl. The robber fell backward. His gun fired into the air as he hit the boardwalk with a thud.
Backpacks and Betrayals (A Haley Randolph Mystery) Page 13