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

turned.
    My apartment complex was just south of the residential area of “downtown” Whiskey Bayou. It was built on swampland, which was only part of its many problems.
    The building wa s a square of four stories made of crumbling orange brick, single-paned windows—most of which were cracked—and stairs that divided the building into two halves. The parking lot was no better than rubble and sad looking shrubs lined the cracked sidewalk. The inside wasn’t a huge upgrade, but the rent was cheap.
    “Geez, lady. You live here?” the cop asked.
    “Home sweet home,” I said as I got out of the car. “Just park my car as far away from the building as you can. I wouldn’t want it to get damaged if the building collapsed in the middle of the night.”
    “Right,” he said, not sure if I was joking.
    I was. Kind of.
    “Thanks for the lift,” I said and turned towards the building. Mr. and Mrs. Nowicki were both peeping out their window on the first floor, so I gave them a wave and headed up the stairs.
    I was on the fourth floor. I hated being on the fourth floor. The plus side was that I was in damned good shape from hauling groceries, textbooks and whatever else I could carry from Pottery Barn up four flights of stairs. The bad news was that things like rain and tree limbs came through my ceiling first.
    I noticed the yellow slip of paper taped to my peeling front door as I stuck my key into the lock. It was another eviction notice, warning me that I had to be out by the deadline under penalty of law.
    No problem.
    I’d think of something.
    I tore the note off, pushed open the door with my total body weight because the humidity caused the wood to swell, and made my way to the bedroom where I fell face first on the bed.
    I couldn’t take much more in a day. I’d stripped, found a dead body, committed assault, gotten drunk, ogled a hot detective, despised the same hot detective, been escorted home in a police car and gotten another eviction notice. And it wasn’t even dinnertime.
    I was asleep before I could tell myself that things could only get better.

CHAPTER THREE

    Sunday

    I’d been taking a little hiatus from church for the past six months, so when Sunday morning rolled in with a crash of thunder and the plop of water as it hit the random buckets I had placed around the apartment, it seemed like the perfect excuse to miss one more Sunday service. I snuggled back under the covers and dozed until noon. Besides, my mother would be there, so she was representing me by default.
    My reasons for steering clear of the First United Methodist Church in Whiskey Bayou had nothing to do with God, the new banjo player they hired to accompany the choir or the fact that Reverend Peters frequently took too many sips of the communion wine.
    It had to do with the fact that my wedding took place there six months ago.
    It was a beautiful Christmas wedding. The church was decorated in yards of tulle and red roses, the cake was five tiers of confectioner’s heaven and seven bridesmaids were decked out in ruby satin. My dress had cost a fortune and was decorated with thousands of tiny seed pearls and a fifteen-foot train. The wedding was perfect.
    The only thing missing was my fiancé.
    While I’d been waiting to walk down the aisle, my fiancé Greg had been boffing Veronica Wade, the home economics teacher from my school, in the back of the limo that was waiting out front.
    My ex-brother-in-law was the one who’d caught them in the act, and Derek “the Dweeb” Pfeiffer has never been one to handle situations delicately—like when he left my sister so he could find himself and inspire people through his rock. And let me tell you, Bon Jovi he is not. Of course, my sister should have known better than to marry so meone who would give her the name of Phoebe Pfeiffer.
    Derek didn’t think about keeping the news of Greg’s infidelity in the family and handling the matter quietly. He went directly to the videographer so the whole thing would be caught on film and made an announcement to the attendees from the vestibule.
    Greg and Veronica raced off in our limo and used our honeymoon tickets to frolic in the Bahamas for two weeks, while I faced a crowd of two hundred . I didn’t get married that day, but the non-wedding got a hell of a write-up in the Whiskey Bayou Gazette, and I still have wedding cake in my freezer, which is always a plus.
    A glance at the clock showed me I’d sufficiently slept in long enough to