Table of Contents
She must be on the right track if someone wanted to kidnap her...
The Novels Of Virginia Brown
Harley Rushes In
In Memory
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Harely’s Next Adventure
Acknowledgment
About Virginia Brown
She must be on the right track if someone wanted to kidnap her...
Harley made one last trip to the nightclub’s bathroom. One glance in the bathroom mirror was enough to convince her that four beers were past her limit. She looked like something out of Fright Night.
Suddenly, the bathroom light went out. “Hey! I’m still in here!”
She fumbled with the latch on the stall door, then eased out and felt her way along the tiled wall. She bumped into the sink and ricocheted off the opposite wall. Swearing loudly, she wrenched open the bathroom door and ran right into a solid wall of muscle. A smelly bag was yanked over her head and her arms were pinned in a viselike grip as she was dragged down the hallway and out into the alley.
Whoever had her was trying to force her into a car, and she was just as determined not to go. Somehow, she got her legs up with one foot braced on each side of the open door. She blindly grabbed for a handful of his clothes to pull him off balance. He made a high-pitched sound like a loose fan belt and dropped her. His family jewels were probably missing a few stones by now. She crawled away and stumbled to her feet, ripping the bag from her head to yell for help.
That was when someone smacked her on the side of the head and she saw stars explode in front of her eyes. She hit the ground in the alley hard. Unable to move, she just lay there staring up at the stars.
Then someone bent over her, squeezing her cheeks together and peering into her eyes. “Hey, are you all right? Talk to me, honey. Focus . . . that’s right, both eyes looking in the same direction at once, now.”
A face slowly came into focus. She blinked. Diana Ross? “Why’d you break up the Supremes?”
Diana laughed and said to someone else nearby, “She’s coming around. She’s just not making much sense yet.”
“Trust me, she doesn’t make much sense when she hasn’t been hit in the head,” a familiar voice said. “I’ve never met anyone who can’t even go to the bathroom without getting into some kind of trouble.”
That would be Morgan, Harley thought hazily. He sounds upset.
The Novels Of Virginia Brown
The Blue Suede Memphis Series
Hound Dog Blues
Harley Rushes In
Suspicious Mimes
The Dixie Divas Series
Dixie Divas
Drop Dead Divas
Dixie Diva Blues
Divas and Dead Rebels (2012)
General Fiction
Dark River Road
Harley Rushes In
The Blue Suede Memphis Mysteries
Book Two
*
Virginia Brown
Bell Bridge Books
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead,) events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Bell Bridge Books
PO BOX 300921
Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-118-0
ISBN: 978-1-61194-098-5
Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2005 by Virginia Brown
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Originally published as Deadly Designs by ImaJinn Books, a division of ImaJinn, Canon City, CO
We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.
Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Interior design: Hank Smith
Front cover art and design by Don Thurakichprempri
:Mrhi:01:
In Memory
of Baby and Ranger, two wonderful dogs who left me behind as they went on a great adventure to the next life, where I hope there are plenty of squirrels to chase, biscuits to eat, and sunshine to keep them warm. No longer in my life, but forever in my heart.
Dedication
To my mother, Dorothy Leathers Lipsey, from whom I inherited my love of reading, and to my father, Wayne Nelson Moose, from whom I inherited my love for writing. Thank you both for enriching my life with these gifts. You always gave me the best.
And to a temperamental cat that will race from the back of the house to attack me when I sing. Of course, if you heard me sing, you’d probably do the same.
One
“You da One, baby.” Tootsie grinned, then tossed back a strand of his long auburn hair and inspected his newly painted nails with a critical eye. The smell of Raspberry Soufflé nail polish thickened the air of Memphis Tour Tyme offices. “Now you da famous One,” he added.
“You mean infamous.” Harley tried and failed to be modest. She rustled the front page of the Sunday edition of the Commercial Appeal, Memphis’s only major newspaper. There it was, in black and white and blurred color:
Local Tour Guide Breaks Jewelry Theft Ring and Helps Crack Murder Case, read the large headline. The leading sentence in the article said so much less than had really happened:
Harley Jean Davidson, 27, tour guide for Memphis Tour Tyme, had a narrow escape from jewelry thieves Friday night that ended with an arrest on charges of grand larceny, attempted murder, and two counts of murder. Ms. Davidson was instrumental in capturing the suspect . . .
She looked up with a satisfied smile. “I just love it when justice works.”
“Don’t get too excited yet,” Tootsie said as he applied a top coat of clear polish over the bright raspberry color on his nails. “A jury could always set him free.”
Harley frowned. That was daunting.
When Tootsie added, “But at least it’s a good photo of you,” she studied the blurred color of the picture apparently taken as she was leaving the warehouse. Her short blonde hair stuck straight up, her green eyes looked red, the man’s tee shirt she wore hung almost to her knees, and she had an expression on her face like she’d just been hit with a stun gun. She’d been so focused on skipping out, she hadn’t even noticed the reporters or photographers at the crime scene. Just her luck. She sighed.
“I bear a startling resemblance to Billy Idol. My hair looks like porcupine quills. And my mouth is open. I think I’m drooling.”
“A natural look for you, baby.”
“That’s unkind,” Harley said, but all in all, wasn’t totally displeased. The article gave her credit for hunting down dangerous felons, which in a way she had, although after running for her life, it’d certainly seemed more like she was the one being hunted. An unpleasant memory, but not without some residual benefits.
“So,” she said as she handed
Tootsie yesterday’s paper, “with all this free publicity for Memphis Tour Tyme, I’ll bet Mister Penney is happy.”
Mr. Penney owned and operated Memphis Tour Tyme, and while rarely seen on a daily basis, frequently made his presence felt. Never in a pleasant way.
Tootsie lifted a perfectly arched brow. “The ogre isn’t often happy.”
“How true. He always looks like a basset hound. Sad brown eyes. Floppy ears—did I say that last out loud?”
Tootsie grinned. “You did. I’m trying to picture a bald basset hound.”
“Spare yourself. It’s not pretty.”
“He wants to see you first thing this morning, you know.”
She grimaced. “I was afraid of that. And his mood is . . . ?”
“Inscrutable. Like the Sphinx.”
“Or the basset.”
“Right.” The phone rang, and he punched a button and gave his usual “Good morning, Memphis Tour Tyme, how may I help you?” spiel. After he transferred the call he handed her a stack of pink message slips and said, “The phone’s rung all morning, people wanting you to find their dog or cat, and one even wants you to find her iguana. No lie. A Mrs. Beasley wants you to find a necklace she lost when she was in high school way back in the sixties. Oh yeah, and your aunt Darcy said she has to speak to you as soon as possible.”
“Aunt Darcy?” Harley blinked. Her mother’s younger sister never called her at work or anywhere else. “I can’t believe she called. She never calls.”
“Not everyone is unappreciative of your talents. Your aunt seemed very impressed.”
Harley took the pink slips of paper he held out, amazed and gratified. If even her family was impressed, then all was not lost. It usually took events of gigantic proportions to impress them. After all, her family knew all her flaws with annoying attention to detail, and they could be counted upon to regale complete strangers with youthful foibles that still had the power to make her cringe. Aunt Darcy was not only not an exception to that fact, she was the poster celebrity for it.
Tootsie lowered his voice to a dramatic baritone. “And Mike Morgan called. I assume that you’ll be returning his call first.”
A flutter in the pit of her stomach reminded her of the lazy Sunday spent lying in bed with the gorgeous man who’d ended her months of celibacy. Who could have foreseen that she’d enjoy it so much? What a delicious way to celebrate still being alive. And with a souvenir which still leaned against her bedroom mirror, a reminder of her narrow escape and life’s possibilities. It had been pretty harrowing, running for her life in a warehouse crowded with cheap wooden statues and china dogs, especially when the man chasing her had no scruples about shooting her. Fortunately, she’d been able to hide behind a wooden statue with an astounding erection that did not prove to be impervious to bullets. It did, however, make an interesting souvenir. Somewhere there was a fertility god without his goods.
“Why would you think I’d call Morgan first?” she asked out loud, and Tootsie gave her a knowing look and pursed his lips.
“You have that just laid look, baby.”
“Bitch,” she said fondly, and went down the hallway to use the phone in privacy. She’d have to remember to bring him the dress she’d promised last week when he’d used his computer hacker talents on her behalf. Tootsie really should utilize his mind and talents in a better job, but he said this one suited him very well. Harley had often wondered just how the conservative Lester Penney had been induced to hire a man who spent his spare time dressed as Cher or Julia Roberts, but that wasn’t really any of her business. If someday Tootsie wished to share his secrets with her, fine, but she cherished him as a friend too much to intrude on his privacy and ask.
Besides, since he was only a little taller than her five-six, and his extra thirty pounds were distributed quite differently on him than her one-hundred and twenty—one-fifteen on good days—were on her, sometimes they swapped clothes. She had leftover dresses from her days of wining and dining as a corporate banking employee, and Tootsie had some cute tee shirts that he rarely wore. He liked silk, she liked cotton. It made for a symbiotic friendship.
The tiny office down the hall, which was used by all the drivers, had been a storage closet in another life. It could be a tight fit, but she managed to wedge herself behind the oak teacher’s desk that had come from a Memphis School District surplus sale. Reminders of its former use were in the form of insults and obscenities carved into the sides and top. City school teachers had to be tough to survive. The old wood chair squeaked a loud reminder to feed it WD-40 as she sat down and reached for the phone.
Like Tootsie had predicted, she called Morgan first.
“You aren’t answering your cell phone,” he said, his low, raspy voice making her tingle all the way to her toes.
“I know. It’s broken.”
“Oh yeah. I’d forgotten. How many does that make in less than a week?”
“Three. I have insurance. Not that it helps much. Apparently there’s a limit on how many times they’ll pay for new phones.”
He laughed, and Harley’s toes curled inside her Nikes. Honestly, he made her tingle in places she didn’t know could tingle. And it’d be emotional suicide to let him know that.
“Maybe I should buy stock in Nokia,” he said. “At the rate you go through cell phones, it should make a nice profit.”
“Right. So what’s up?”
“Baroni’s through with the stun gun if you want it back. It’s not needed as evidence.”
“Mr. Penney will be delighted. Not that it did me any good. I didn’t even get to use it.”
“Better luck next time.”
“Oh no,” she said. “There won’t be a next time. I’m leaving police work to the police. I’m not cut out for it.”
“Yeah, I didn’t want to point that out to you. Glad you got there on your own.”
“Hey, at least I proved Yogi didn’t kill Mrs. Trumble.”
“We’d have gotten there eventually. What are you doing for dinner tonight?”
“Any suggestions?”
“Oh yeah. And one of them even involves food.”
There went that tingle again. “Taco Bell,” she said. “Burrito. Extra sour cream on everything. And no beef.”
“You’re a vegetarian?”
“That’s Diva. I just happen to prefer the bean burritos today. And yesterday. Probably tomorrow.”
“You frighten me. See you around seven.”
When she hung up, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the large mirror on the small wall. Where had that big smile come from? It stretched from ear to ear and made her look like an idiot. Not that another bad hair day didn’t have the same effect. Her short hair usually stuck up in gelled spikes that she considered attractive, but today she had more of an early Meg Ryan look. The “just laid” look Tootsie had mentioned.
Jotting down a note to replace her broken cell phone, she dialed her aunt.
Darcy Fontaine answered on the first ring. “I’m so glad you called,” she said in a rush, or what passed as a rush for her normally slow Southern drawl, which had sped up to an almost normal tempo. “I need to talk to you privately. Not now. It’s too—dangerous.”
Dangerous? How melodramatic. “Well, I’ll be at Grandmother’s for lunch Saturday. We can talk then.”
“No. I can’t wait. Harley, it’s vital I speak with you soon. And this has to be kept between us, all right?”
Harley sighed. “Okay. So, what is it?”
“Well for heaven’s sake, we can’t discuss it over the phone. Meet me for lunch today. At The Peabody. I’ll be wearing red.”
She made it sound like international espionage. Harley swallowed another sigh. “I’m at work, Aunt Darcy. And I can’t afford The Peabody anyway.”
“I’ll buy, and it doesn’t matter what you look like, either. Just meet me in the lobby at twelve-thirty, okay?”
Without waiting to hear if it was okay, she hung up, leaving Harley listening to a
dial tone and scowling. That was so . . . Darcy. No one else’s plans ever mattered. And of course, she just assumed Harley was dressed inappropriately. She was, but it probably didn’t matter anyway because they’d never leave the lobby bar. Aunt Darcy liked to drink her lunch. Gin and tonic. Or just plain gin.
With that in mind, Harley decided she might as well get the interview with Lester Penney behind her. Monday mornings were quite often fraught with peril anyway. If she saw Mr. Penny now, the rest of the day had to be better.
It was a short walk down the corridor to Mr. Penney’s corner office. She tapped on his closed door, then went in when he responded with what sounded like an invitation, but he could have been just clearing his throat.
Lester Penney was on the phone, and he looked up with an irritated frown that wrinkled his forehead in another reminder of a puzzled basset hound. Harley took the chair he indicated with a wave of his hand and looked idly around the office while he conversed in monosyllables.
It was a large office, in stark contrast to the other tiny cubicles. Not that office space was a high priority, as most of the employees drove the vans or busloads of tourists and didn’t require desks. Tootsie, as office manager, scheduler, and receptionist, had the second largest workspace. Rhett Sandler, in the other office, did payroll and accounts receivable. Harley thought he had the personality of a doorknob, but since he was in charge of handing out the money, she’d never said that aloud. Apparently, he did a good job, and at least he didn’t embezzle funds like the last guy had.
“Yes. No. Not at all.” Penney leaned back in his chair with a loud squeaking sound and swiveled to stare out the window.
From the two-story buff brick building that housed Tour Tyme, his view consisted of tree tops and the edge of a huge Taco Bell sign. Poplar Avenue separated the building from Taco Bell, an often perilous crossing of endless traffic. But Harley’s reward was always a hot bean burrito and maybe nachos. Depending on money and appetite.
Harley Rushes In (Book 2 of the Blue Suede Mysteries) Page 1
