Dusted (A Maid in LA Mystery)

by Jacobs, Holly

  Dusted:

  A Maid in LA Mystery

  (Book #2)

  by Holly Jacobs

  The characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any similarities to real people, living or dead, is coincidence and not intended by the author.

  Copyright 2013 Holly Fuhrmann

  Dedication:

  This one is for my marvelous Duetters, who not only are the best friends anyone could ask for, but are also my support team. It’s especially for Charlotte MacClay/Carter. Char was the most amazing inspiration. She had a huge heart that was only matched by her huge talent. She was very much loved by everyone who knew her and will be missed!

  Thanks to Katie Nagle who found Quincy’s song!

  And a very special thank you and shout out to the Mantsch-Lafaro Insurance Agency here in Erie. When I called with insurance questions for this book, I prefaced the questions with, “I know this is your strangest question of the day.” It was! But they really went above the call of duty to answer those questions for a work of fiction. Seriously, thank you ladies! And if any insurance info is wrong…that’s on me, not them!

  Dusted:

  A Maid in LA Mystery

  (Book #2)

  by Holly Jacobs

  Table of Contents

  Dear Reader

  Reviews

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Book #1 Steamed

  Bio

  Other Kindle Books by Holly Jacobs

  Dear Reader,

  In my first Maid in LA Mystery, Steamed, Quincy Mac is afraid she’s going to go to jail for murder she didn’t commit. Why? Because she accidentally cleaned a murder scene. Well, she found the real murderer and also found a new boyfriend as well—the seriously hunky Detective Cal Parker.

  In the second Maid in LA Mystery, Quincy’s got herself in another mess…a mess that’s going to take a maid extraordinaire to clean up. You see, this time it’s Quincy’s business, not her freedom, that’s on the line. She’s looking for the real culprit, trying to figure out a new relationship while dealing with an emptying nest and two teenagers who are eating her out of house and home. She’s also trying her hand at a new hobby. Add to that, there’s Tiny’s wedding. Not to mention her parents come to town…again. It’s never a dull moment for Quincy Mac.

  I want to thank everyone for their support with the first book! I so hope you all enjoy Quincy’s second adventure.

  Holly

  Other Maid in LA Books:

  #1 Steamed: A Maid in LA Mystery

  #2 Dusted: A Maid in LA Mystery

  #3 Holiday Novella: Spruced Up: A Maid in LA Mystery

  Reviews for Dusted:

  Note from Holly: You saw in my dedication that this book is for my Duets friends. We all found each other because we wrote for Harlequin's comedy line—Duets. In the years since that line folded, we've gone on to write books with murder and mayhem, with intrigue, with red-hot passion, and with heart-wrenching drama. Sometimes we still write comedies. When I asked a few of these funny friends to help me out with some reviews, they were sooooo helpful. I think you'll agree their comedic roots are showing in their responses! I can’t decide who was more helpful…my friends or my family (who reviewed the first Quincy Mac book, Steamed: A Maid in LA Mystery).

  “When someone asks what you did today, just say, "DUSTED." They don't have to know it's a delightfully sparkling Maid in LA mystery by Holly Jacobs, now do they?”

  ~Jenn McKinlay, NYT bestselling author of the Library Lovers mysteries and the Cupcake Bakery mysteries

  "If this thoroughly delightful, smart, and funny gem is the only book you read this year—you need to read a lot more often."

  ~Isabel Sharpe, Half-Hitched, Harlequin Blaze

  “Thank God she finally found a legal outlet for those weird urges of hers."

  ~Carolyn Greene, Finding Favor, Finding Faith series #1, Harlequin Love Inspired

  “Dead bodies in bedrooms, stolen art?? Oh, my, how amusing. I, um, have to tell you, Holly, that as much as I have loved sharing a hotel bedroom with you at many a writing conference, my nerves are too—um, my schedule's too full to be able to room with you anymore. Seriously, Holly's one of the funniest women I know. And she's a darned good roommate to boot!”

  ~Nancy Warren, Frosted Shadow, A Toni Diamond Mystery

  “Clever and fast-paced, Jacobs’ DUSTED has the impact of a plane swiftly eliminating vermin from a cornfield.”

  ~Anonymous

  Chapter One

  I looked in the mirror and felt nothing but…horror.

  Orange?

  I have never owned any orange clothes, so I must have suspected all along that orange might not be my color, but looking in the mirror, I was positive—orange was sooo not my color.

  Frankly, I don’t know that orange is anyone’s color. I mean Tiny could keep calling it rustic pumpkin until the cows came home but the fact of the matter was my maid-of-honor dress was orange.

  The other fact of the matter was, I resembled a giant pumpkin.

  “Quincy Mac, you are absolutely stunning.” Tiny’s voice was all breathless wonder.

  The last two weeks she’d gone from wedding-itis to full blown wedding-fever. Everything she said was breathless.

  Breathless wonder.

  Breathless excitement.

  Breathless anticipation.

  “Breathe, Tiny,” I reminded helpfully as I had countless times the last few weeks.

  “You look so.…” She started to cry.

  Breathless and crying. Those were Tiny’s two modes of communication as her wedding day drew nearer.

  I filled in the blank while I waited for her to compose herself.

  You look so…much like a pumpkin.

  You look so…scary.

  You look so…much like a tangerine. Oh, who was I kidding, I was no tiny tangerine. I was a full-on navel orange.

  I sucked in my baby-pooch and wished I’d thought to bring my body-sucker. Oh, I know that’s not what it’s actually called. These days people call them by their name brand. My Grandma Mac called hers a girdle, and I don’t think I ever saw her without it on. I’m pretty sure she was buried in it.

  Note to my boys who would some day be in charge of burying me. Do not bury me in a body sucker.

  “…so beautiful,” Tiny finally managed.

  I smiled and put all of Mr. Magee’s acting classes to use by assuring her, “I love it, Tiny.”

  I didn’t love it, but she did and that’s all that mattered. Too many people forget that a wedding is the bride and groom’s special day. It’s the one day when thinking about yourself isn’t the least bit selfish. If she wanted me to look like a pumpkin, then by gosh, I’d be a smiling pumpkin as I walked up that aisle.

  Tiny’s wedding was three weeks away. I had promised myself I’d do everything in my power to be sure it was perfect.

  Heck, I’d even found out who murdered our client Mr. Banning in order to see to it I wasn’t in jail for Tiny’s wedding.

  Okay, truth was, I didn’t want to be in jail period. And since I’d accidently cleaned Mr. Banning’s murder scene, I was the only viable suspect.

  Yeah, that’s right. I cleaned it. I washed and polished the murder weapon. I even steamed the footprints off the carpet.

  My Uncle Bill went to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Eventually the authorities realized he was innocent. They let him out of prison, but he came ou
t with a tattoo. Mac’s do not get tattoos. Or go to prison for that matter.

  I was determined not to go to jail and leave my boys, or miss Tiny’s wedding…or get a tattoo. I just didn’t think a tattoo would age well. I was thirty-eight, and though I avoided the sun because I was a fair-skinned woman, I knew that wrinkles would be forthcoming. And who wants to see a wrinkled tattoo unicorn, even if it was a declaration of my innocence?

  No one, that’s who.

  Thankfully, I found the murderer. Of course, he tried to kill me to keep me quiet, but I grew up with brothers and three sons. I kicked him and made it count. I rescued myself before Cal came in to rescue me.

  Detective Cal Parker, my new boyfriend. It felt so odd to use the word boyfriend when I was the mother of three teens and almost forty (sigh), but I hadn’t come up with any better designation for him.

  I must have sighed as I thought about my cute, hunky new boyfriend because Tiny laughed. “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”

  “Him, who?” I asked, trying to sound as if I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

  “Him—Detective Sexy.”

  “I was thinking about your wedding.”

  Tiny laughed some more and harrumphed me in a way that I knew meant she wasn’t buying it.

  The phone rang. I sucked in my stomach as I walked across the room in my pumpkin-colored dress. I picked up the phone. “Mac’Cleaners. We do it all and we’re glad you called. How may I help you today?”

  “Quincy, it’s me,” a woman’s voice said.

  I didn’t need any more than that to know it was Theresa Maxwell. She was officially the worst employee Mac’Cleaners had ever had. To be honest, that whole cleaning-Mr.-Banning’s-murder scene was her fault because she was supposed to be the one cleaning the dead-body house that day, but she’d called in sick. When an employee calls in sick, Tiny and I—as the business owners—step in and fill in for them. So Theresa is why I’d almost ended up in jail for a murder I didn’t commit.

  Theresa really was the worst employee ever, not just in an almost-sent-me-to-jail sort of way.

  I’d like to fire her. I’d threatened to do just that, but I kept hoping she’d get better. Seriously, she couldn’t get any worse. Although this call didn’t bode well for the getting better and seemed to be pointing to worse. There was panic in her voice.

  “What’s up, Theresa?” I asked suspiciously.

  “It’s not what’s up, it’s what’s down. I was dusting a painting at the Gifford’s house and it fell. There’s a tear in it now.”

  I’d seen the Gifford’s house when I cleaned for Theresa a month ago. The last call of the day had been the dead body house, but the Gifford’s house was part of her morning calls, which became my morning call when Theresa called in sick. I did not know much about art, but I knew enough to know their art was expensive. The Giffords lived in Hollywood Hills, an expensive part of town. I lived in Van George, where the cost of the houses sent my Pennsylvanian family into heart palpitations, but here in southern California was actually a mid-middle class sort of price.

  “Oh…” I searched for a curse word I could use without being too crass or offending anyone. With three teenaged boys in the house, I really tried to watch myself.

  “Boogers,” I opted for. It was a pretty perfect curse word. Gross enough to get some oomph out of, but not really offensive.

  “I’m so sorry, Quincy,” Theresa said. “I don’t know what to do now.”

  “You’ll have to call the Giffords and let them know what happened. Please take a picture of the damage with your cellphone, just to cross all our t’s. I’ll dot our i’s by calling our insurance company to make a report. We’ve never had an accident like this happen, but please assure the Giffords we’ll make it right.”

  “Okay,” Theresa said and hung up.

  I hit end on my phone and thumbed over to my contact list to look for our insurance company’s number.

  “Problems?” Tiny asked.

  “Theresa,” I managed.

  “We’re going to have to fire that girl,” we said in sync.

  I called the insurance company.

  I got home late, no shocker there. I talked to the insurance company, then to the Giffords, then our insurance company again, then to the Giffords again after they talked to their insurance company. Luckily they had a special rider on their homeowner’s policy for their artwork. They’d made an appointment to take the painting to a restorer tomorrow to assess what could be done about the tear in their Mark Kirchoff’s Bird on a Ledge.

  “…and when they told me the painting was worth more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, I thought I’d throw up,” I told Cal as we sat in my living room.

  “Mom, we’re going,” Miles said between a mouth full of food.

  I had discovered that teenage boys eat…and eat a lot. More than a lot—they eat constantly. I could go shopping and within minutes of unpacking the groceries one of my three teens would moan, there’s nothing to eat. And they wouldn’t be lying. Food came into the house and then disappeared immediately.

  Miles swallowed whatever he’d been eating and finished, “I’m hoping to do a complete read-through tonight and then work on the blocking.” Miles was convinced he was going to be Hollywood’s youngest award-winning director.

  Thinking of awards made me think about poor Mr. Banning and his Mortie Award. I glanced at Cal. I’d met him at the murder scene. The murder scene I’d cleaned.

  “Okay, don’t be too late. Drive carefully and—”

  “—wear your seatbelts,” the boys said in unison.

  I guess I’d said the same thing more than once.

  I looked at the two of them. Miles wore his hair long. It drove my ex nuts, but Miles thought it made his brown hair look artsy. At six two he towered over me. Miles called Eli a shrimp, because Eli was only six foot. Hunter, my oldest was six one.

  Eli never minded being the runt of the litter. His reddish brown hair wasn’t as short as Hunter’s crew cut, or as long as Miles’ artsy cut, or non-cut as the case may be. But Eli had a lot of hair and when he forgot to comb it, it had a sort of Einstein-ish look to it.

  He’d forgotten to comb it tonight.

  “See ya,” they said again in unison.

  I still wasn’t used to just a duet. I missed Hunter, though he’d been a good and indulgent son and called from college a couple times already.

  Because the boys were all about a year apart, I’d be experiencing a rapidly emptying nest over the next two years. Part of me longed for it. And part of me dreaded it.

  I was a woman, and that meant I was entitled to be fickle.

  The boys slammed the door when they left.

  “They’re good kids,” Cal said. “Though I’m not sure how they feel about me.”

  “I think they’re reserving judgment until Hunter comes home for fall break.”

  “Great,” he teased. But he didn’t seem to really mind. The boys had only met Cal a week ago when they’d come home from their summer vacation with their father and his newest wife, Peri.

  Heck, I’d only known him a month.

  “So, something at Big G’s tonight?” he asked.

  I snickered because that sounded sort of dirty, but it wasn’t. Big G was Cal’s best friend. He wasn’t all that big—height-wise. My boys were much taller than he was. But he was sweet. He had a small Italian restaurant and kept offering to steal me away from Cal.

  I knew he was kidding, but it was kind of nice to have a man flirt with me. And it was nice that Cal didn’t seem to like it. I know, that’s horrible to admit, but there it was.

  Cal didn’t flirt. He simply gave me a hot look that made me remember I was a woman.

  A woman whose sons wouldn’t be home for hours. Suddenly, I had a much better idea than going out to dinner at Big G’s. “Or, rather than going out, we could stay in and see about a big—”

  Cal’s phone rang. He went all coppish and Pavlovish. He p
ulled his phone out of his pocket before I could suggest we find something here for dinner and enjoy having the house to ourselves.

  “Parker,” was his terse salutation.

  I thought that maybe he knew what I was going to offer and was terse because he didn’t like to be interrupted.

  “Got it,” was all he said before he hung up. “Sorry, honey, I’ve got to go.”

  “A murder?”

  “Get that look out of your eyes. I don’t need ‘help.’” He made little air quotes as he said the word help.

  Cal had not enjoyed my investigating Mr. Banning’s murder. He was worried that I was going to make a habit of ‘helping’ him at work.

  “Hey, I did figure out who killed Mr. Banning,” I felt obliged to point out.

  “That was dumb luck. And you almost got yourself killed in the process, so no more murders except for the ones you and Dick play at.”

  “I could offer some wonderful insights,” I tried.

  “Nope.” He kissed me. It was a very platonic kiss, but it was enough to make me wish he hadn’t answered his phone.

  I didn’t want to let it go at that, so as he backed up, I grabbed his collar, pulled him close and tried my best to kiss his socks off.

  I knew I was severely out of practice, but I was pretty sure I was getting better over the last month.

  “Wow,” he said.

  Yes, I was definitely remembering how to kiss someone’s socks off. I let him go and grinned. “Yeah, you just go to your murder scene and don’t give another thought to the fact I was going to suggest we stay here and eat dinner…in my bed.”

  “Quince,” he said with a gratifying groan. “You’re killing me.”

  This time I gave him a chaste kiss and stood up. “Call when you have a minute.”

  “I’ll solve this murder in record time,” he promised me. “What were you going to feed me for dinner?”