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

of hermaphrodites in love and using his Bowflex. He was shirtless and in a pair of loose athletic shorts and there was no sign of a neck brace or the walker. Eddie Pogue looked like he was in the prime of his life, and he was busted.
    I snapped several pictures before I forgot that I was standing in a flowerbed. I looked down at the smushed flowers beneath my feet and scooted back, but my heel hit the brick ledge that lined the beds. I sprawled onto my backside and couldn’t muffle the curse as my posterior took a hard knock.
    I looked up as the front door opened and Eddie Pogue stood in the doorway.
    “Addison Holmes, what the hell are you doing here?”
    And then he saw the camera slung around my neck . His face turned red and veins started popping out all over his body. I crab walked backward until I thought I had a chance of getting my feet under me.
    “Give me that camera,” he said and started to head in my direction.
    “Can’t do that, Eddie. It d oesn’t belong to me.” I stood slowly, put my hands up in an offering of peace and gave him my best pals smile.
    “Give me that goddamn camera or I’m going to take it from you,” he said. His voice was menacing and I automatically took a step back.
    “Give it to me,” he screamed and charged straight at me.
    I didn’t stop to try and reason with him. I took off as fast as my gimpy knee and aching ass would allow. I heard the sound of a motor starting and I looked back over my shoulder as Eddie held the weed whacker over his head like an extra on Nightmare on Elm Street .
    I stopped to take photographs just to clinch Eddie’s guilt and then realized he wasn’t about to start trimming his lawn again. He took off at a dead sprint wielding the weed whacker in front of him like a sword. He was headed straight for me.
    “You’re crazy!” I screamed and put everything I had into getting to Kate’s car. The camera was flopping around my neck and banging me in the ribs. The sound of spinning blades was getting closer, but I didn’t bother looking back. If I was going to get decapitated I didn’t want to see it.
    I frantically searched my pockets and remembered I’d left the keys in the car. I yanked the door open on the Taurus, slid into the grimy seat and locked the doors just in time to hear the blades make a thwap, thwap, thwap sound on the bumper.
    I took a couple of more pictures before I turned the key in the ignition, only for reasons unknown to me, the Taurus decided to sputter into nothingness. I had a crazed maniac after me and the car wouldn’t start.
    “Come on, come on,” I said. My hands were shaking and I pushed down the pedal to see if I could get the ignition to catch. Eddie had moved to the front of the car and was bashing the windshield and the side mirrors with all his Bowflex strength.
    “Finally!”
    The engine caught and I pushed the gas pedal to the floor. I left Eddie Pogue standing in the street waving his weed whacker like a madman.

    I parked Kate’s Taurus at the back of her building and went inside to swap keys. She was in a meeting (thank goodness), and so the only person in the office was Lucy. When I got back to my car I called and left a message on Kate’s voicemail.
    “Ummm, Kate? This is Addison. I just wanted to let you know I’m sorry about the Taurus, but it wasn’t my fault. I’m sure insurance will cover all the damages, and probably you can find another Taurus that was just as ugly as that one on the Internet.”
    I hung up. I needed to find Nick and tell him the list of people who could possibly be after me had increased by one. I’d learned my lesson about keeping secrets about my enemies, and probably Eddie Pogue wouldn’t be sending me an engraved invitation to his incarceration when all was said and done.
    On the drive to Nick’s precinct, I realized something crucial. I didn’t even know the man’s cell phone number. I knew nothing about him at all, not where he lived or even if he was living with someone. Or, God, what if he had children? The only thing I knew about Nick Dempsey was the shape of his tonsils, that his chest hairs felt great rubbing against my breasts and that he’d been married once before.
    Nick’s precinct was in the heart of Savannah’s historic district, and the building looked nothing like a place that held criminals and overworked cops within its walls. It was pretty, with shade trees and soft red brick.
    I took stock of my appearance and grimaced. I looked like