Prologue
Friday
They say it’s not over till the fat lady sings.
I wasn’t fat yet, but my time was coming. I figured it was best to get my last rodeo out of the way before cankles and stretch marks set in. Though technically, my last rodeo had been a few weeks ago when I’d closed my last case. But retirement had caused a proverbial hitch in my get-along.
I wasn’t sure where all the cowboy imagery was coming from, but I’d been having weird dreams that Sam Elliott was trying to recruit me to become a US Marshal and hunt down outlaws. Sam also wanted me to put a bit in his mouth and ride him like a stallion, but I declined because I’m a married woman now.
Pregnancy hormones are weird.
My name is Addison Holmes, and I’m no stranger to weird. It was a miracle Nick had married me at all. I’m Southern by birth, which means I come from a long line of crazy. The good news is Nick is Southern too, so he wouldn’t know what to do with a normal woman.
My mother always said that good intentions paved the road to hell, and my intention had been to retire from the PI world and move on to the next phase of my life. I had no idea what that phase was going to be. I was in what the experts liked to call “transition.” The limbo of not knowing anything about my future, except that there’d be a tiny human attached to it, was daunting to say the least, and I’ll be the first to admit I wasn’t handling it all that well.
Between Sam Elliott and my murky future, it didn’t take a psychologist to know that I was missing the action my previous life provided. I was the kind of woman who needed adventure and excitement. In truth, I’d become an adrenaline junky and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Which might have been the reason I’d agreed to take this case, even though I’d told Nick I was done with PI work forever. Which was why this was going to be my little secret.
For the past couple of years, I’ve been halfway decent at my job at the McClean Detective Agency. I was as surprised as anyone else as far as the halfway decent moniker went. It’s not skill or experience I possess, so much as bulldog tenacity and luck.
Sometimes my tenacity got me into trouble. I could have turned this whole thing over to a veteran PI, the cops, or even the FBI. But this case hit close to home, and I’d promised my mother I’d take care of it without dragging our family name through the mud. But considering Aunt Scarlet had been dragging our name through the mud for years, I wasn’t so sure what she was worried about. Holmes women had been making headlines for decades.
I was pretty sure if I got out of this alive I’d be making more than headlines, because if Nick became aware of my current situation I’d have to move to another country.
Vince Walker was my stepfather, and I’d tracked him to a fishing cabin on the bayou where I’d hoped to catch him in the throes of passion with a twenty-something townie skank.
I’d been there about five minutes when a car had pulled up and Vince had shushed me and shoved me out the back door onto a floating dock the size of a doormat that moved every time I shifted my weight. He told me to avoid the flotants and keep quiet.
I didn’t know what a flotant was, and if I’d had cell service I would’ve Googled it, but I figured whatever it was, I’d at least be able to see it coming for me. There was a pirogue tied to the dock and it swayed gently in the marshy green water. Gnats and other bugs hovered over the scummy surface, and other things I didn’t want to think about made creaking noises off into the mossy trees.
The bayou was a cacophony of smells—hot mud, dirty dishwater, and fish—for the most part. My sense of smell had become heightened over the past few weeks—meaning if the wind blew the wrong way I was probably going to throw up. I was going to have to add the bayou to the growing list of things that made me vomit, along with pancake batter, air freshener, and concrete after it rained. Like I said, pregnancy is weird.
The temperature was a lot colder on the water, and I shivered in my brand-new leather jacket, wishing I’d gone for practicality instead of style. But there was no use crying over spilled milk, and at least I looked really good while I shivered uncontrollably.
I wasn’t sure who’d driven up, and Vince hadn’t said, but he had mentioned there were only a couple of people he could trust with the information he’d found out. Considering the delicate nature of said information, I hoped he knew what he was doing.
I decided standing on a swaying dock wasn’t in my best interest, and I couldn’t see or hear anything from my current position. I was one of those people who had constant FOMO—fear of missing out—and I needed to see what was happening in the worst way.
My choices were limited. I tried to recall the layout of the fishing cabin, at least what I’d seen of it. It was basically one main room that served as a bedroom and living room, a small kitchen that was no more than a sink, a microwave, and a minifridge, and a closed door I could only assume was the bathroom.
My best chance of curing my FOMO was to make my way over to the kitchen side where there were two small windows. I leaned as far as I could without toppling into the water to see what the layout was like.
There were stilts spaced evenly apart on the entire left side of the cabin, as if someone had planned to build onto the structure at some point. They stuck up about two feet out of the water, and if I could manage to stand on one I’d be able to look into the window.
I was feeling pretty optimistic about my chances of success. The mucky water surrounded almost the entire house, but there seemed to be solid ground just on the other side of the kitchen window, leading back up to the front.
I debated whether or not to untie the pirogue and row myself to my destination, but I was afraid it’d make too much noise if I accidentally hit one of the stilts. I wasn’t exactly Sir Francis Drake when it came to boats. My only other option was to jump from stilt to stilt until I reached the window.
I heard a car door slam and knew my time was limited to get into place without being seen or heard, so I took a deep breath and channeled my inner ninja warrior. The stilts were a good size, big enough I could fit both feet on them, but there wasn’t extra room for forgiveness if I missed my target.
I wiped sweaty palms on my jeans, said a little prayer, and then stepped onto the first stilt, which just happened to be directly beside the dock. It was solid beneath my feet, and I let out a whoosh of surprise. I didn’t give myself time to think or I would’ve chickened out. I jumped to the next one. And then the next. Until finally I stood on the one just outside the kitchen window.
I had to admit it felt good to know that marriage and pregnancy hadn’t totally stolen my mojo.
If I stood on my tiptoes I could barely see in the kitchen window. I gasped in surprise as I saw Vince staring back at me, his lips thin and his eyes narrowed. I was used to this look from men, so I gave him a thumbs-up, and he blew out a breath and went to answer the knock at the door
Vince stood with his back to me and his weapon drawn and down at his side while he cracked the door an inch to see who it was. Then he opened it wider and let two men inside.
They were older, probably in their late fifties to early sixties, and I could tell by looking at them they were cops. Or at least they used to be. Cops all looked the same—not in physical appearance, but there was something in the eyes that was a dead giveaway. My father had the same look.