Scottsdale Heat: a romantic light-hearted murder mystery (Laura Black Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

or so, and then it’s off to bed. That congressman’s kid had me up until five o’clock this morning.”
    “Well, I’m in,” Sophie said. “I was supposed to have a date tonight, but the jerk canceled, the chilito . Men are all such worthless dog shit. I’m sure Lenny won’t mind paying my way too. Besides, when we’re on stakeout, you and I always seem to end up in the most bizarre places.”
    “Sophie,” I said. “That’s the best news I’ve had all day.”
    Sophie took another drink of her Top Dropper. She seemed to think about something and looked up.
    “Have you pissed anybody off yet?”
    “Not yet,” I said.
    “So, there isn’t going to be anyone shooting at us? You know how I hate it when they shoot at us.”
    “Not that I know of,” I said.
    She relaxed, then brightened up, her eyes narrowing.
    “We get to shoot anybody? I could bring my gun. I just bought a fresh box of bullets.”
    “I just started. It’ll probably be pretty slow.”
    Sophie didn’t say anything, but she slumped back in her seat, disappointment was written on her face. Our waitress appeared with three more Margaritas.
    “From the guys at the table.” She gestured to a table against the back wall. Three college-aged guys were smiling and holding their beers up in the typical guy greeting. We waved back.
    “Why do they always wait until we’re ready to go?” Gina asked.
    “Yeah, but it was sweet,” Sophie said. She got up and walked over to their table. She talked to the guys for about a minute then stood one of them up. She wrapped her arms around the guy and gave him a long, wet, sloppy kiss. She then turned and walked back to our table. The guy just stood there with a happy dazed look on his face.
    “What was that about?” Gina asked.
    “I asked them whose idea it was to send over the drinks. I told them we had to go, but I didn’t want them to think we were ungrateful.”
    I looked down at the drinks. “What are we going to do with these?”
    “Hey, no problem,” Sophie said. “I have a Thermos in the car. For dessert, we’ll have a pitcher of Margaritas, to go!”
    ~~~~
    Sophie and I drove to Alex’s apartment complex. It was in one of the new high-end apartment communities that have popped up all over Scottsdale the last few years. Lots of palm trees, swimming pools, tropical plants, fountains, and waterfalls.
    Alex lived in a large one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a building that contained maybe eight apartments. We drove by his unit and saw lights were on in the living room. We parked in a space that had a view of Alex’s doorway and his kitchen window. His grandmother had said he drove a black Jaguar, but there wasn’t one in the lot. I checked my watch. It was 8:35.
    We sat and talked while Sophie slowly polished off the Margaritas. She had stopped by the time she had drained less than half the Thermos, but by then she had gotten a case of the giggles. I still needed to focus, so I had switched to Diet Pepsi.
    Sophie had just broken up with her latest boyfriend and she was keeping her options open for the next one. I had no options in regards to men. After Reno and I had broken up, I had only gotten close to one other man, who turned out to be a jerk. That was a little over six months ago. He had worked as a golf instructor at the very upscale Excalibur resort. I wasn’t sure if the relationship could go anywhere, but he was reasonably cute and he chewed with his mouth closed, both fine qualities in a man.
    We had dated for about a month and a half and then he stopped calling. Against Sophie’s advice, I decided to look into it. It only took me an afternoon to find out he had been caught in the sauna with one of the resort’s aerobics instructors. Word had it when they were caught, he was giving her a lesson on the proper grip of his shaft. Both were immediately fired, and that was the reason he hadn’t called.
    That did it for me. Men are all lying, cheating, worthless, scum!