Whiskey Rebellion (Romantic Mystery/Comedy) Book 1 (Addison Holmes Mysteries)

I got started all the blood rushed to my cheeks and the tears came to my eyes. I hardly ever cried. Unless I was angry.
    I wiped my cheeks off and pointed a wet finger at John Hyatt.
    “We had paperwork. I gave you money.”
    He held up his hand and managed to retain the air of authority and confidence he’d had before I walked through his door. “If you’d read the fine print, Ms. Holmes, you’ d see that both parties have the option of backing out at any time during the sixty day waiting period. This bank has certainly done nothing wrong,” he said smugly.
    So maybe I hadn’t had the time to read all the fine print, but you could bet your bottom dollar I was going to check into it as soon as I got home. And I wasn’t ready to let John Hyatt off the hook just yet.
    “You have not heard the end of this. Small town banks are only as good as their reputations. You’re a worthless worm of a man, John Hyatt, and someday the way you treat people is going to come back and bite you in the ass. I will get my house. You shook on it, gave your word on it. You know what that tells me, John.”
    John shook his head no. Sweat beaded on his upper lip.
    “It tells me your word doesn’t mean shit,” I said. I made sure to slam the door on the way out, and I ignored the stares and whispers as I left.
    There is never such a thing as too much drama in Whiskey Bayou.

    My anger didn’t diminish as I headed back to my apartment. I was going to catch some cheaters in the act, and by God, their infidelity was going to pay for my new house.
    I changed into black y oga pants and a matching tank top and pulled my long hair through a Savannah Sand Gnats hat. I filled my backpack with bottled water and trail mix and grabbed a Sudoku book to fill the time.
    Now I was ready for a stakeout.
    I jogged out to my car and took it as a sign from God that my life was taking a direction for the better since the sun was out and there wasn’t a rain cloud in sight.
    When I got closer to my car I realized that something was taped to the driver ’s side window. The picture was distorted and of poor quality, but I got the gist.
    It was a pic ture of me on the main stage of The Foxy Lady. I looked like I knew what I was doing in the still photograph, hanging upside down on that pole like I’d been born to be a stripper. I remembered precisely when the photo had been taken and by whom. Mr. Butler had been alive and well when he’d immortalized me on film. The problem was Mr. Butler wasn’t so alive and well now, which meant he couldn’t have been the one to tape the photo to my window.
    I looked around but didn’t see anyone skulking about or looking guilty—not surprising since anyone standing in the parking lot of my apartment complex for more than five minutes had a ninety percent chance of being hit by falling debris. The problem with this latest development was that the most likely person to have Mr. Butler’s phone was his killer. And now the killer was taunting me. Never a good situation to be in.
    I folded the picture and stuck it in my bag in case I ever decided to take up scrapbooking and got into my car. One stupid picture left by a killer wasn’t going to slow me down. No sirree. My life was headed in a new direction, and this new direction was going to have nothing to do with strip clubs or dead bodies.
    I decided to do a bit of snooping for John Hyatt’s fiancé before I went into Savannah. I drove down Main Street and took a left on Whiskey Road. John Hyatt lived on the corner in a large three-story plantation house with an expansive front yard and beds of flowers everywhere. Scarlett O’Hara would have loved John Hyatt’s house.
    There was a three-car garage attached to the house on the street side, and a wrought iron fence surrounded the Hyatt compound. It seemed like a lot of space for one man, but he’d inherited it from his parents and seemed to enjoy the lavish lifestyle it represented. There was a w hite van parked in the driveway that I knew wasn’t John’s, so my curiosity level went up a notch.
    I looked through John’s file one more time to refresh my memory. Fanny Kimble and John Hyatt had been engaged for thirteen months, and their wedding was scheduled for October of this year. That seemed like a long time to be engaged to me, but I wasn’t really an expert on r elationships. Fanny was a true southern debutante, so a wedding that would eventually cost more than the governor’s inaugural ball might