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

heard the 1812 Overture warbling from inside my handbag, my reflexes were too slow to answer it in time.
    Someone pounded on my door but I couldn’t get my shocked body to move from the chair. When Kate opened the door and let herself in, I looked at her with the glaz ed expression of someone who had just gotten her hand caught in the cookie jar. I was going to have to do some fast footwork to keep my job.
    “You will never believe what I just heard,” Kate said by way of greeting.
    I stayed silent, but she kept up her end of the conversation and didn’t notice my odd behavior. I had no idea what she was saying.
    “Are you okay, Addison? What are you downloading from the camera?” she asked shifting her attention. “Have you finished the cases I gave you?”
    “You could say that,” I said, tossing her the file on Harry Manilow so I could pull the screen saver up on the computer. “We’ve been friends a long time. Right, Kate?”
    She uhhmmed as she continued to read the file.
    “So let’s say I had something really important to tell you. Something that could change our friendship. Would you want me to tell you?”
    Kate finally looked up from the file. “What have you done, Addison?”
    “Just answer the question. We’d always be friends, no matter what. Right?”
    “Right. Unless you decided you were attracted to my husband. Then I’d have to shoot you.”
    “Well that goes without saying,” I said, stalling. “And what if I invoked the friendship rule?” Neither of us had ever called on the friendship rule before, but it had been put in place when we were in junior high just in case. The friendship rule claimed that anything could be said within a five-minute period, and anything said during those five minutes would have no consequences. The words would be forgotten as soon as the time was over and neither party would walk away mad.
    “This must be pretty serious,” Kate said. “Should I sit down?”
    “Just say whether or not you agree for me to invoke the rule.”
    “All right. The rule is in effect. What have you got?”
    I tossed her the notebook with a blow-by-blow account of the night before.
    “ I didn’t know you were writing romance novels,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”
    “Just read it.”
    Loretta propped her leg on the table so the robe she wore gaped seductively. She rolled the sheer stockings on her legs down slowly, teasing the man who sat captivated across from her with glimpses of the unknown. A passionate embrace, a wet kiss, and the two lovers fell to the floor with thoughts only of each other.
    “I can’t read what comes next. Your handwriting is terrible.”
    “It’s my mother’s writing. And she wrote down the actual events of what took place while we were snooping around John Hyatt’s house last night.” I squenched my eyes shut and waited for the angry questions to start, but Kate stayed silent. When I opened my eyes I could tell she was angry by the white knuckled grip she had on the notebook, but her face was as calm as ever.
    “You’ve got three minutes left,” Kate said.
    “I need to ask you to keep the things you’re about to see to yourself. I don’t want you to take the information to Nick.”
    “I can’t promise that if it has to do with his investigation. I could lose my license for interfering in a police investigation. Not even the friendship rule can usurp that.”
    “But it’s not really like that. I’ve already talked to Nick and asked him for just a few more hours to get all the information together. He’s given me until noon, and I’m just asking you to do the same. I’ll take this stuff to him myself after that. It’s just a few hours, and I need to prove that I can do this myself.”
    Kate looked at the ceiling and closed her eyes. I was a pain in the ass, and I was going to have to make things up to her somehow.
    “Why do you feel like you have something to prove, Addison? This isn’t like you at all.”
    “I just feel responsible, that’s all. Mr. Butler was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and it’s pretty obvious after looking at these photos that he saw too much. But Mr. Mooney was a sweet old man who was having the time of his life playing some hard-boiled detective. And he’s dead because I asked him to keep watch over John Hyatt and anything that was going on in the house.”
    I looked at Kate pleadingly. “I still don’t know how I feel about Greg’s death , or how his murder is even