Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 72561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
She nodded. “I have to work today.”
My heart sank a little bit when I realized she wouldn’t be here for much longer. “Will you come over to my house tonight when you get home?”
She nodded. “Sure. It’ll be late though.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “You do realize, right, that I watched this neighborhood for a full four months. I know everyone’s schedules. Including yours.”
In a matter of minutes, we had the kitchen clean, and she was leaning on the counter next to me. “Do you know how to make ice cream?”
Thrown off guard by her random question, I nodded. “Sure.”
“I need the salt. It’s in a big tub in the pantry. Oh, and the ice cream makers on the floor in the corner,” she said, pointing to the pantry to the left of the counter.
Walking into the tiny room, I grabbed the salt and the ice cream maker, noticing that her shelves were nearly bare.
“Hey, when’s the last time you went to the store?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen with the machine.
Placing it on the counter, I turned to her as she dug in her fridge for the milk.
Her ass was swaying back and forth, as she dug for the half gallon that she’d buried earlier when she was looking for something to make for dinner.
The outline of her thong, in her tight gray shorts, was drawing my eyes and making my imagination take off. Was she wearing those cute little black panties with the tiny pink bow on the top, or the red ones with the black lip imprints all over them?
I was so distracted while I was thinking that I missed her question.
“Hey!” She snapped.
My eyes finally focused on her face, and I blinked, bringing her back into focus.
“Did you hear what I said?” She asked with concern.
Bringing my hand up to my face, I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and pointer finger. “Sorry,” I said. “What did you ask?”
“Chocolate or vanilla?” She repeated.
Her hair was still in its ponytail, but now the sweat on her face had dried, making the stray locks surrounding her head curl.
“Is your hair curly?” I blurted.
She grimaced. “When it wants to be. Most of the time it’s frizzy with a side of curl. That’s why I keep it in a ponytail most of the time.”
Then she shook the chocolate syrup at me in question.
I shook my head in answer. “I’m a vanilla kind of guy. I don’t do artificial additives. If you do it right, vanilla’s all you need.”
I hadn’t meant it to sound so...sexual, but it most assuredly came out that way, and if the look in her eyes was any indication, I’d made a point, and I hadn’t even meant to.
“Jesus, it’s those fucking shorts. Why are they so goddamned tight?” I burst out.
She giggled, making my heart thaw slightly after the shit day I’d had.
“They have to be tight. That way they stay in place when I run, keeping my thighs from chafing,” she laughed.
I stayed far away from the whole ‘chafing’ part, sensing the trap that was inevitable.
“Alright, what do you need me to do?” I asked.
***
An hour later, Channing was dressed in her simple black scrubs, ready to go to work, and eating a bowl of ice cream.
“Where do you work?” I asked. “Why did I think you did hair?”
No hairdresser I knew of worked this late at night. Nor did any wear scrubs.
“I do dead people.”
I let that hang there in the air for a minute, and then laughed until I saw that she was serious.
“Say what?” I asked skeptically.
She smiled cryptically and then took a long slow lick of her ice cream. “You want to come with me tonight?”
Chapter 10
I need a prince on the streets, and a beast between the sheets.
-T-shirt
Channing
“I guess I thought that the mortician was the one to do the makeup and hair,” Loki said to me as I applied another swipe of concealer on the woman’s face.
“Oh, Brittany; you know Brittany, right?” I asked turning to him.
He was sitting on a stool beside my table and watching me work.
He’d been sitting in the exact same spot, going on three hours now. He looked exhausted, but he hadn’t stopped talking since we got here, asking me questions.
He nodded. “The Chief’s wife. I didn’t realize she was a mortician, though. I knew she worked in the funeral home, but I guess I didn’t realize that being a mortician was a—ahh, woman’s job.”
He smiled at me conspiringly. Remembering the fit I’d thrown earlier about what he said about female body builders.
I mock glared at him and went back to my client.
Her name was Penelope Stanley, and she’d died in a car wreck three nights ago. She’d been driving on a back road when a deer stepped out in front of her. When she’d swerved to miss the deer, she’d ran head on into a large oak tree, killing her instantly.
She needed a lot of reconstruction on her face, but her family was adamant about it being open casket.
I’d been surprised when Brittany had told the family she could do it.
Normally, if they were as bad as Penelope here was, she’d tell them straight up that it would be better to have a closed casket. The only reason she’d agreed was that Penelope was the wife of a member of the city council. She didn’t want to risk pissing off her boss, so she’d put in a lot of work reconstructing her face, and making her look as normal as possible.
“Brittany’s father was a mortician. Being a mortician seems to run in the family, but when Brittany turned sixteen, her father contracted cancer, and they had to sell the business to afford the treatments. When her father died from complications, Brittany set out to follow in his footsteps,” I explained.
He nodded understandingly. “When we made that bust at Bayou Funeral Home, you were up front. You’d said you were the receptionist.”
I noted a hint of accusation in his voice, and I wondered how long he’d been stewing on that question. He was a detective, after all, and it had to have been killing him not to ask it.