“I’m the judge, and I say you chicks lost. Pony up!” says Hank.
“Yes, but when the judge ceases to be impartial, all bets are off,” Julia counters. “You helped Blake win.”
We all start arguing at once, but our banter is interrupted by a knock at the door. Sarah opens the door. “Back to work, people. Don’t some of you have deadlines to meet?”
***
Blake gets his article to me right on time. I have about two hours to proof it, which should be perfect—that is, unless he had to write it so fast that he made a bunch of errors. In that case, I may be here all night. I begin, like I always do, with a quick read through the article:
Local Woman Found Strangled
Blake Morgan, Investigative Reporter
Liberty resident Audra Downing was found dead Thursday morning in her apartment overlooking the town square. Ms. Downing was twenty-one years old, having been a lifelong native of Liberty and a graduate of Liberty High School. She earned an Associate Degree in Business from Midwest Business College, and was employed by Franklin and Associates, having formerly been with Stewart-Campbell Accounting.
Downing had made plans to meet a friend for dinner on Wednesday evening. When she did not arrive for dinner, her friend tried phoning her, but could not reach her. Downing’s friend went looking for her at her apartment on Thursday morning. The front door was unlocked, and the furniture and belongings inside had been broken and scattered. Downing’s friend found her lying unresponsive on her living room floor and tried to revive her. Being unsuccessful, Downing’s friend called 911.
Police, fire department officials, and EMTs arrived on the scene Thursday morning just before ten o’clock. A crowd of onlookers gathered to get a glimpse of what kind of event could have brought so many emergency vehicles to the normally quiet town square. Downing was pronounced dead at the scene and was taken to the coroner’s office for an autopsy.
The autopsy revealed that the victim had been struck on the back of the head and strangled. The coroner placed her time of death early Wednesday evening. The police confirmed that Downing’s apartment showed signs of a struggle—lamps tossed aside, broken glass on the floor, and chairs overturned. However, the door and door locks had not been broken or damaged, indicating that Downing either knew her killer or had agreed to let the person enter her home.
The Liberty Police Department declined to say whether they had any leads or suspects, as the investigation is ongoing. However, as a precaution, they did warn area residents not to let anyone they do not know or trust into their homes.
Friends described Downing as an outgoing, attractive young woman, full of life and energy. A fund for town square beautification is being established in Downing’s name. Her funeral services are Sunday afternoon at Weber Funeral Home in Liberty.
Not bad. Not bad at all. Blake really put in a lot of time on this article, so I really won’t have much, if anything, to correct. I was worried at first that it would come off sounding like what he wrote for our bet, all romance novel-y and overly verbose. He must have been writing like that as a joke, because this is excellent. I’d always suspected that Blake has been phoning it in on his articles—he was supposed to be such a big-time reporter, but his daily articles sound like all the other Chronicle reporters’ work. Then again, it’s not like he’s had a story to really sink his teeth into before now. It’s difficult to be hard-hitting and investigative when you’re writing about library renovations and routine meth lab busts. And, hey, it looks like I won our cause of death bet after all, since the autopsy revealed that she was not only strangled but also was hit in the head with some kind of object.
I finish up a couple of small changes and pass Blake’s story along to Sarah for final review. I begin gathering my things together, ready to go home for the weekend, when a thought comes to me. What a great excuse to talk to Blake! I’ll just compliment his article, and he’ll be so flattered that he’ll ask me to go to dinner with him. Yeah, right. That’ll happen. Well, it’s worth a try.
I purposely pass by Blake’s desk on my way out. “Hey, I just finished your article, Blake. It was really good.”
“Thanks, Hart,” he says with a smile. “Have a good weekend.” He turns his attention back to his computer screen.
Well, like I said, it was worth a try.
CHAPTER FOUR
Bob the cat is sitting next to me on my couch, eyeing me. He’s giving me that “I’m going to kill you in your sleep” glare that he usually gives me. I hate cats. Hate them. They always stare at you, all smug and aloof, like they think you’re stupid, and they also seem to delight in leaving hairballs where you’re the most likely to find them in the morning with your bare feet. The only time they seek you out is either when they’re trying to stalk and attack you, or when they want something like food or a warm lap. And, their method of bathing totally grosses me out. What with my professed hatred of the species, I suppose it would seem strange that I am, in fact, a cat owner. The reason is that when I inherited my grannie’s house after she passed away, the cat unfortunately came with it. The house is a gorgeous old craftsman style bungalow that my great-grandfather built especially for my grannie. She always kept it up beautifully, so it was ready for me to move right in. The only downside? The house has a permanent boarder…with fangs.
Even more bizarre than my cat ownership is my part-time job. For two years now, I have been a pawn in the pyramid scheme that is Cutie Paws Cat Accessories—kind of like Mary Kay, only with cats. My job is to coordinate parties where the hostess invites her friends over to guilt them into buying crap with cats on it or useless crap for their cats. For her trouble, the hostess gets free cat crap, and for my trouble, I get cash. I also receive fifty percent off all the cat crap I can stand—like I’m actually going to buy anything for that satanic beast who lives with me. He sleeps on my kitchen table just to piss me off, so is he really going to quit sleeping there just because I buy him an overpriced cat bed to sleep on instead? Not likely. I’m also not about to put anything in my home or office that has a cat on it—I’m already twenty-six and single, so I have to work hard not to perpetuate the assumed “cat lady” stereotype as it is.
As I’m relaxing and flipping through the new Cutie Paws Fall Collection catalog (trying not to vomit in my mouth), the phone rings, and Bob hisses at me as I jump up and rush to answer it. It’s only two o’clock, and I have already finished cleaning the house, pulling weeds, and mowing the lawn, so I now have nothing to occupy my time for the rest of my Saturday. I am bored silly! Since I broke up with my now ex-boyfriend, Lee, I have had a lot of free time on my hands and haven’t found any new activities yet to fill the void. Although, I have to admit that mind-numbing boredom is a step up from spending every Friday night at Liberty Motor Speedway watching his buddies race. Not that it wasn’t interesting the first few times, but once you’ve seen them go around the track once, you’ve pretty much seen it all. Our Saturdays together were spent rehashing the races with his buddies and patting them on the back. Let’s just say I’ve fulfilled my lifetime quota of Good Ol’ Boy Club meetings. Would it have killed them to go to a Starbucks or Olive Garden once in a while? Somewhere, anywhere, that didn’t involve beer and gasoline?
I pick up the phone and hear Hannah’s voice on the other end of the line. “Hey, Lizzie!” she says, sounding more relaxed, probably thanks to the weekend. “Any word on when my Cutie Paws stuff will be in?”
Hannah hosted a Cutie Paws party for me a couple of weeks ago and invited all of her friends, and get this—she doesn’t even have a cat! That’s just the kind of person Hannah is—always willing to help when you need her. Her friends graciously bought a bunch of cat crap, and, best of all, got me up to date on all the latest summer gossip. Word is that a group of high school boys has been leaving the infamous “flaming bag of poo” on several teachers’ front porches, and it’s also rumored that there are a few 4-H parents who are doing their kids’ fair projects for them (no surprise). An
d, of most interest to me, Hannah’s friends shared the news that Blake Morgan is secretly seeing someone, allegedly the sixth someone in the mere two months he’s lived here. That’s almost one conquest—I mean—first date, per week! I don’t know what the standard for man-whore status is, but he has to be close. I still find him wildly attractive, though. Don’t judge.
“It should be in within the week,” I reply. “They’ve been slammed this month because of the double hostess points special.” Women across the country are jumping at the chance to earn a little extra cat crap.
“Good. One of my friends is giving what she bought as a gift and was curious. So, how is your weekend going?” she asks tentatively.
“Oh, just fine,” I say, trying to sound cheerful. Why does everyone assume when I’m not at work I sit at home boo-hooing about my breakup? It was like two months ago.
“Did you see how hot it’s going to be this week at the fair? I think it’s going to be ninety-four degrees the day we have to work.” Now she’s talking about the weather. Fan-freaking-tastic. How desperate does she think I am for small talk?!? Although, it is nice that she called to check on me, seeing as how I’m obviously only a step away from becoming an unfortunate, single cat-lady.
“I know! I hate being hot. I hope we’re getting paid overtime for working that booth.”
“Me too. Well, I had better go. See you Monday!”
As I hang up the phone, I begin racking my brain, trying to remember all of the interaction outside of work that I’ve had with my friends the past couple of months, since my break-up. Have I come across as needy and alone? Now that I think about it, I really haven’t been out much, and if I’m completely honest, I guess I’ve had more to work through emotionally than I’ve let on to anyone.
***
As I sleepily make my way to work on Monday morning, I realize that I should not have stayed up until two o’clock in the morning watching the CSI marathon on TV last night. I simply couldn’t resist. Hank was correct in his assessment that I watch too many cop shows. And, I’m going to do it again tonight, because tonight’s marathon is going to start with the first season, which I have (surprisingly) never seen before.
This particular Monday is not the day I need to be dragging, thanks to a staff meeting (in which I have to appear both interested and awake) and the booth duty I have tonight at our county fair. The Chronicle is trying to boost circulation by getting out more in the public eye. That means I’m basically working from nine to four at the paper and four to ten at the fair. Yee-haw!
I’m about ten minutes late this morning, so I miss Blake’s entrance and my daily Blake-vision episode. That’s fine with me. I’m way too tired for it anyway. But upon reaching my desk, I’m jolted awake when I see Blake there waiting for me, sitting in my chair, perusing his stack of morning mail.
“I see we’re working together tonight at the fair,” he says, not looking up.
Sweet! How did I miss that on the schedule? It’s probably for the best, since I would have spent all weekend stressing about it. “I didn’t know that,” I say as coolly as I possibly can, considering my heart is hammering loudly enough for the whole office to hear it. Thanks to our little bet last week, my brain has gotten much better at being able to talk to Blake, but my body still responds to him just like before.
“It’s going to be a hot one today,” he murmurs absently, flipping through the envelopes he’s holding.
All I can say is “Mmm-hmm…” Is he trying to drive me insane, wanting to see how long it will take me to jump across the desk and beg him to take me right then and there? He’d better move it along, because I only have a few seconds of self-control left in me.
“Did we get saddled with the job of setting up the booth since this is the first night?”
Finally snapping out of my Blake-induced coma, I’m able to reply, “Oh, no, actually Hank and some of the other guys took all our materials out there and set up the tent yesterd—”
“Staff meeting in five minutes!” Sarah yells from her office.
Oh, joy. Well, at least I can sit and not do any work for a while, which will give me time to replay my encounter with Blake in my head, and, of course, stress about the fact that I get to spend the entire evening with him at the fair!
We all gather around, and Sarah begins, “Quiet, everyone. What do we have for current assignments? Blake?” Sarah chooses Blake first, again, and they begin discussing the follow-up to his big story.
In the middle of their conversation, Ronald Mason, the Chronicle’s publisher, bursts into the room and hijacks the meeting. “People. This week we are at the county fair six nights in a row. Do you have any idea the amount of potential customers that are going to walk past our booth in that time? Thousands. And I want you to talk to each and every one of them. Tell them why they need to read the Chronicle. Tell them why they have to buy a subscription. Every child should have a Liberty Chronicle frisbee in his hand. I’m even going to make this interesting,” he grins and pauses for effect. “The employee who sells the most new subscriptions gets…a gift card to Sam’s Tavern!” He raises his hand and looks around the room as if he expects someone to high-five him. He’s a nice enough boss, but seriously full of himself. Paul the Picker, Mr. Mason’s resident yes-man, only manages a half-hearted, “Oh, awesome…” (Paul is still upset about his friend Audra.) The downside to winning the gift card? As we all know too well, Mason will expect the winner to use the gift card to take him to lunch. Not because he’s stingy or can’t afford it—he inherited the paper from his mother, and his wife, Bitsy (yes, that’s really her name to my knowledge), is a trust-fund baby. He’s just the type of person who does a favor expecting one in return, and some of us ladies here suspect that he might be in the market for certain off-the-clock favors, if you know what I mean. We have absolutely no proof of that—he just acts like a creeper sometimes.
Mason continues, “So go out there and sell some subscriptions! Meeting adjourned!”
As we shuffle our chairs back to our desks and a frustrated Sarah throws up her hands at the total derailment of her staff meeting, Hank already has a pool going with three-to-one odds the winner of the gift card is Blake. Everyone seems to think he’ll be the most effective with women age eighteen to one hundred. It’s true. I’d certainly buy anything he was selling. Paul the Picker is a hundred-to-one, and Hank has himself at ten-to-one. I put in five dollars for Paul, because he looks so dejected, hanging his poor little curly head. And, hey, if by some miracle he happens to win, I’ll make five hundred bucks!
I didn’t have time to grab a cup of coffee before the staff meeting, so I am running on fumes at this point. I head straight for the breakroom and fill my coffee mug to the top. Through the breakroom’s open door I have a clear view of Blake at his desk. He has his back to me, so he won’t be able to see me staring. As I may have mentioned before, he is so hot. What I don’t understand is why I’m so infatuated with him. I’ve had strong crushes on guys before, but this is by far the worst one. I haven’t even so much as looked at another guy since I set my sights on Blake. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s some weird rebound response since my break-up with Lee. I hope I’m not chasing the unattainable just so I don’t have to deal with actually dating someone again. Whoa, this is getting way too deep for me to ponder without my morning coffee. I’ll have to think about this later.
I haven’t yet taken my gaze off Blake when, of all people, Bethany bounds into the breakroom. “Oh, Lizzie,” she says, studying my face. “The dark circles under your eyes are bigger than normal! Are you okay?”
She really shouldn’t be messing with me before my coffee. And for the record, I don’t have dark circles under my eyes. Hank joins us in the breakroom at this point, and I roll my eyes at him behind Bethany’s back.
“Fine,” I say through gritted teeth.
I guess Bethany caught me staring in Blake’s direction, because she continues blabbing, “Ooh, are we checking out Blake Morgan this morn
ing? He is razor fine. Have you noticed he has really been talking to me a lot lately? I think he is super close to asking me out.”
I wouldn’t be any more surprised if she told me she’d just been elected President. “Seriously?” I ask, doubt written all over my face.
“Seriously. Like I told you, he’s been totally checking me out the past couple of weeks. It’s been making Paul jealous.”
“Paul.” This bitch is delusional. Though she and Paul are about equal in the attractiveness department, Paul is not even interested in her. NO ONE is interested in her.
“Yes, Blake and I will have to keep our office romance a secret so Paul’s feelings are spared,” Bethany says emotionally, nodding her frizzy head.
Hank can’t take it anymore. “You really think Blake would ask either of you rednecks out? Neither one of you females has a shot in hell with him. He’s big city, and you’re small time. So stop making goo-goo eyes at him and get back to work.”
My mouth drops open. I’ve never heard Hank go off like that before. I’m hoping most of it was directed at Bethany and not at me, so I try to diffuse a little tension by joking, “My, we’re awfully salty this morning!”
Hank grunts, glares at Bethany, and stomps out of the breakroom. I can see his point, but who is he to be calling me a redneck? Sure, I’ve spent a substantial portion of the past year at the local racetrack, I know my way around a hunting rifle, and I prefer beer and barbecue to wine and cheese, but come on. I’ve been to college, I’m pretty well-traveled, and I still have all my teeth.
Teeth. Hmm. Maybe Hank meant physically more than socially. Bethany, I can understand. She is definitely the complete package—of disaster. I believe I’ve mentioned her unfortunate looks, plus she dresses like a reality TV skank. Luckily, she’s built like a boy, so it’s not like there’s anything to see hanging out of her too-tight, too-low-cut clothes. I steal a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the breakroom. Now, I’m no model, but I’m not tragic, either. I run almost every day, so I’m in decent shape. And, thanks to my friends at Fascination, my hair is a lovely shade of blonde hanging gracefully past my shoulders. I glance down at my clothes. Not what you’d call this season’s couture, but on my budget, I’m well put-together enough. Blake, however, is a vision. His hair always appears like he’s come straight from the barber—there’s never a point when he looks like it’s time for a haircut. With no makeup, he’s way prettier than me after I’ve put on my makeup with a trowel. Don’t even get me started on his body. He must spend literally hours in the gym every day. And, his suits must either be Armani or made especially for him. Outside of a magazine, I’ve never seen a man in such silky, finely-tailored clothing. I bet his wardrobe is worth more than my house.
It's Just a Little Crush Page 4
