1 Mardi Gras Madness
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MARDI GRAS MADNESS
Alison Golden
Honey Broussard
Contents
FREE PREQUELS
PRAISE FOR THE ROXY REINHARDT MYSTERIES
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
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OTHER BOOKS IN THE ROXY REINHARDT SERIES
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARDI GRAS MADNESS
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PRAISE FOR THE ROXY REINHARDT MYSTERIES
“Roxy is a delight & I thoroughly enjoyed her debut.“
“I read your book until the wee hours last night.... couldn't put it down!!”
“All the food made me very hungry and really wanting to visit New Orleans!”
“Absolutely loved it!!!”
“You've done a great job. Truly. This one shines.”
“I just want you to know how much I like Roxy. She makes me smile.”
“Loved the book, looking forward to the next installment. I think you've got a winner!”
“I like Roxy and her new friends and look forward to more books including them.”
“What a great book!”
“Loved it!”
“Excellent characterization.”
“I need to tell you that you have a winner here.”
“I’m enjoying this new series immensely. Congratulations on the start of another great series.”
“Loved your new series!”
“The story was fantastic!”
“Storyline and character development is easy flowing, interesting, and really holds the reader’s interest. Overall a great new series to look forward to!”
“Loved the book, looking forward to the next installment. I think you've got a winner!”
CHAPTER ONE
“WHAT IS WRONG with you?” the man said.
Roxy Reinhardt blinked over and over trying to get her view of the world to clear. As it was, everything looked blurry with unshed tears. The call center desks looked warped as the fluid in her eyes distorted everything, stretching out desks and squeezing people until it all looked as wrong as it felt. Please don’t let me cry…please don’t let me cry.
“Sir,” Roxy said, praying her voice wouldn’t shake, “I have to remind you to remain non-abusive in your interactions with customer service.” She adjusted her headset and swallowed hard. “It would be easier for us to troubleshoot your washing machine problems if you were a little calmer.”
“I am calm!” the man at the other end of the line shouted, adding a strong curse word for good measure.
“Okay,” said Roxy, just about holding it together enough that her voice didn’t tremble. “Just a second, please.” She hit the “Hold” button and exhaled deeply trying to calm herself. What she didn’t expect was a little sob to come out, too.
Jade had heard and turned around with a nasty gleeful look on her face. “Are you crying, Roxy?” she asked, her eyes shining. Straightening up in her seat, Roxy tucked her blonde flyaways behind her ears.
“No,” Roxy said quickly. Some days this job felt so much like high school. It was as though bullies picked on her, sneered at her, and followed her around. She always seemed to have to “protect” herself from Jade, as well as Chloe, the girl in front who was mercifully taking what seemed to be a long, drawn-out technical call.
Roxy tried to take no notice. All she wanted to do was go to the office each morning, work hard, save her money, go home and spend the evening snuggling on the couch with her boyfriend Ryan and fluffy white princess cat Nefertiti. Was that too much to ask?
Apparently it was, as Jade and Chloe always seemed to have something smart and cutting to say. In Chloe’s case, it was often clothed as a “compliment.”
“Oh, Roxy, your hair looks nice today. At least, it looks so much better than it did yesterday,” or “Oh, Roxy, I wish I had a figure like yours. All the men chase after me because of my curves, and it’s just so annoying.”
Roxy was short, only five-feet-two. She had a slim, small-boned figure with which she was mostly at peace. But she was frequently carded and even mistaken for her boyfriend’s much younger sister, despite being 24.
Roxy was generally secure enough in herself to recognize these young women, her co-workers, as insecure and rude and their “compliments” as silliness. However, today she wasn’t able to just let their comments roll off her back quite so easily. She took a deep breath. In truth it felt like everything in her life was falling apart, and she had no clue how to patch it back together again.
Always one to try and look on the bright side, at times like these she would tell herself, “At least I still have my savings.” Having grown up in a semi-rural, impoverished home in Ohio, this money that she had put aside was very important to her. The cushion of money made her feel so safe.
Roxy didn’t make all that much as a call center customer service rep, but she religiously transferred a couple hundred dollars into her savings account each month. It meant bringing in sandwiches and coffee in a flask instead of buying them from the store next door like everyone else, but it was worth it for the glorious feeling of security. Heck, it meant coming to her miserable call center job day in and day out, but if that’s what it took, that’s what it took. She would pay the price of 50 percent boredom, 50 percent stress for the peace of mind she felt when she checked her bank balance—something she did at least once a day. Seeing that dollar amount next to her name was thrilling to Roxy.
But not even her nest egg could save her from her other Big Problem.
Ryan, her tall, dark, six-foot-five boyfriend, was slipping away. No, he was wrenching himself away. No matter what Roxy did, he kept getting ruder and more distant—saying more and more hurtful things as the days went by. It wasn’t his raised voice that hurt her so much; it was the look in his eyes. All the warmth had gone. He looked through her like she was a complete stranger.
Her eyes welled up again.
She suddenly remembered her abusive customer at the end of the phone. She pressed the “Hold” button to go back to the call but got nothing but a beeeeeep on the other end. He’d already hung up. Roxy flopped her head forward into her hands and swallowed over and over. She’d give anything not to cry here. Anything. The customer
would call back and report her for leaving him on hold for so long, and her supervisor would dock her pay instantly, she just knew it.
Angela, her boss, was a cold, hard woman who prided herself on being “no-nonsense” with her employees, which in this case meant she was a real witch. Any little mistake, she docked pay. Didn’t meet your call target for the day? Docked pay. Got to your desk one minute late? Docked pay. If anyone got sick or pregnant, she treated them like they’d made a terrible, unworthy choice and were exaggerating their symptoms.
Roxy felt her phone vibrate in her bag. She knew it would be Ryan—he was the only one who called her. Preferring a quiet, almost silent life, she had very few friends, and her mom never called. She’d never met her father, so it couldn’t possibly be him. Roxy felt a huge urge to reach down and check her phone surreptitiously. Cell phones, however, were strictly forbidden in the office. Getting caught using it one time was a fineable offense. Twice? Termination of employment would be instantaneous.
Roxy valued her job too much to check her phone, but her mind ran wild trying to work out about what Ryan might have texted her. Was it a “Sorry for being a jerk, honey bun, let’s move on,” kind of text? Or, much more likely, a variation on “You’re so unambitious, and you’re holding my life back.” The latter seemed to be his latest complaint.
Roxy couldn’t ruminate for too long, however, because the phone on her desk rang again—a new customer service call to take. “Good afternoon, you’re through to Modal Appliances, Inc. My name’s Roxy. How may I help you today?”
CHAPTER TWO
“OH, HELLO,” THE voice of an elderly lady said. “I’ve just bought a new washing machine, and I can’t work out all these complicated buttons. Do you think you could help me with that?”
“Of course, ma’am,” Roxy said with a forced smile. “Do you know what model of machine you bought by any chance?”
“No, dear, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“No problem,” Roxy said. “Let me walk you through how to find that out. There’s a special sticker on the back of the machine.”
“Oh, thank you,” the old lady said. “That would be very kind of you, Roxy.”
“You’re so welcome.”
Roxy’s favorite calls were those where she could help people who were polite and respectful, even grateful, and she dared to believe that perhaps her day was looking up just the tiniest bit.
But then she caught sight of Angela, her supervisor, marching over. From where Roxy sat, it didn’t look like Angela was using her “We’re-Hitting-Targets-And-I’m-Giving-You-A-Huge-Bonus” walk. It was more like “I’m-On-The-Warpath-And-About-To-Give-You-Hell.” Her eyes locked right onto Roxy and didn’t leave her face. Jade, even though she was on a call, noticed her storm by and turned to flash her eyes wide at Roxy, evidently delighted by the promise of impending drama.
Roxy’s fingers began to shake ever so slightly as Angela came to a stop next to Roxy’s desk and towered over her, folding her arms. Roxy looked up, but Angela flapped at her dismissively, signaling that she should get back to the call. Roxy pulled up the relevant manual on her screen and prepared to talk the woman through the buttons on her machine. Roxy couldn’t concentrate what with Angela looming over her, however, and she made a couple of mistakes as she explained. She sputtered and wondered if Angela had noticed. What was she thinking? Of course, Angela had noticed.
“Thank you, dear,” the elderly woman said at the end of the call. “I think I understand now.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Roxy said. She tried to put good-natured friendliness into the call like she always did, but she was so anxious that it came out all rushed and a tad insincere. “If you have any more questions please feel free to call us again. Thank you for calling Modal Appliances, Inc. Have a nice day.” Roxy spun her chair around to face Angela.
Her supervisor launched into a lecture before Roxy even had the time to blink. “You do know I’ve just had some idiot yelling at me, telling me that you had hung up on him and that he was going to complain about Modal Appliances’ customer service to anyone who would listen because we don’t value our customers.”
“Oh…,” Roxy took a deep breath and looked up at Angela. She tried to meet her eyes, but it was hard. Angela’s gaze felt like a pair of lasers boring into her. “Well, I didn’t hang up on him. I just put him on hold for a moment, to...”
“To what?” Angela exploded!
“To collect myself,” Roxy bravely continued. She hated confrontation. “Because he was being abusive.”
“To collect yourself,” Angela said with a mocking smile. “Oh, well that’s just swell. Are you sure you’re cut out for this job, Roxy?”
Roxy felt a lump in her throat. It was such an unfair question. She had consistently met her targets and often had customers tell her how kind and helpful she was. An elderly gentleman had even once said that she had made his week. “Yes” was all Roxy could come out with.
Angela snorted. “Not convincing. Pack your stuff.”
“W…what?”
“Take your bag and your lunchboxes and go,” Angela said, pointing toward the door at the end of the corridor between the cubicles.
“Go…you mean, like, forever?”
Angela was already walking away. “I haven’t decided yet. I’ll call you if I want you to come back.”
“But…” Roxy began. Angela was already too far away to hear her.
Now the world did begin to distort and warp with her tears. She packed her lunch things into her handbag and took her favorite pen—a purple fluffy thing with a cat on it that wrote as smooth as anything—from the desktop. There was nothing else of hers there.
She didn’t look at Jade or Chloe, but that didn’t stop her from hearing them gossip about her.
“About time, if you ask me,” Chloe said, in a whisper that was much too loud to be tactful. “Maybe we can finally get someone hired who actually fits in.”
“Right?” Jade said, “And, hopefully someone with more fashion sense.”
Roxy knew they were being snarky and mean, but that didn’t stop their comments from stinging. She swung her bag over her shoulder and strode down the aisle of the office determined not to look at anyone. She kept her head high as if she were full of confidence, and, thankfully, she made it to the door without stumbling in her kitten heels as she had sometimes done in the past. However, a tear did slide down her cheek, and she had to quickly wipe it away.
Once in her car—the smallest, most reliable car Roxy had been able to find without putting herself into debt—she had a good cry. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she bent forward to turn on the ignition. She even had a little wail as she drove back to the apartment she shared with Ryan. She hadn’t cried in so incredibly long that it felt weirdly good to do so. All her sadness, disappointment, humiliation—and yes, anger—gushed from beneath her long, dark eyelashes in watery rivulets that she couldn’t have stopped if she’d tried.
As Roxy climbed the stairs to her apartment, she paused in the dingy stairwell. How should she be? Should she wipe all her tears away and put on a brave face? Maybe then Ryan wouldn’t think of her as such a drag. Or should she allow herself to cry in front of him so he could see how upset all this was making her? Then, perhaps, he’d find an iota of emotion—preferably a supportive one—and wrap her up in his strong arms like he used to.
But Roxy didn’t know what he would do anymore. She felt like she didn’t know him anymore. She still really wanted to. She had this desperate urge to reconnect with him, to rekindle their spark. But how? She’d tried pretty much everything. And this on top of her dismissal made her so unsure that she couldn’t be certain of the ground beneath her feet.
Roxy looked at herself in her makeup mirror and scrubbed at her blotchy face with a tissue. Her lashes clumped but the light hitting the surface of her moist eyes made them shine. One of her gold stud earrings was missing.
Roxy was an attractive young woman. A few times throughout
her life she had been told that she was beautiful, a compliment she vigorously denied. Her insecurity made her shake in the face of such approval. She would blush furiously.
But, in truth, her pale skin was like alabaster while her bone structure was delicate. She had deep blue, heavy-lidded, almond-shaped eyes that sat atop a neat, upturned nose. She had a full, small mouth. As she looked in the mirror she could see that her nose was red and her lips were swollen, both a result of her tears.
Roxy’s oval face and fine features were accentuated by her short, blond hair. The length of it was one of the few things upon which Roxy stood firm. While her boyfriend objected to her hair being so short, Roxy detested spending time styling it. The result was a “wash and go” cut that was perfect for her, even though the “swish” that Ryan craved was lacking.
Roxy patted down her plain white t-shirt, and beige skirt, flattening out the wrinkles and turned the key in the lock of the apartment door. She felt numb. Nefertiti, a cat with a cute squashed-up face and an abundance of pristine white fur, was waiting for her in the hallway as usual.
“Hello, my sweet girl,” Roxy said, giving the cat a rub under her chin. She straightened up. “Ryan?”
Ryan worked as a graphic designer from the comfort of their couch and was mostly home, but Roxy’s voice echoed around the apartment. There was no reply. She headed into the bedroom to see if he was asleep. He wasn’t there. Her heart dropped. She saw the closet. His side was empty, the hangers askew.