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

far as I could throw you. I’ve got everything I need to put these two away for a long time, and I had it all before you showed up. The only difference is my hands were tied because I had to go through legal channels.”
    My head was pounding, and I wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl under the covers for the rest of my life.
    “I think I need to go home,” I said, closing my tired eyes.
    “From the looks of you, I think a trip to the hospital is the better choice. Let’s have the paramedics check you out.”
    “Fine. Whatever. I’m too tired and sore to argue.”
    “That’s a first. Hey,” he said, brushing the hair back from my face. “For a minute there I was really worried. Maybe you can take up skydiving or NASCAR instead of hunting down criminals.”
    Nick was looking at me with an expression I’d never seen before, and if my head hadn’t been pounding so badly I would have given it more thought. From the way my body was aching, I was pretty sure the craziest hobby I wanted to take up was knitting. Though with my luck I’d end up stabbing myself in the eye with one of the needles.

EPILOGUE

    It took more than a week for me to be able to sit without a rubber donut or operate heavy machinery due to painkillers, but I hadn’t been left out of the loop just because Nick was too busy cleaning up loose ends to fill me in. I’d had Kate and the rest of the town to keep me up to date.
    John Hyatt and Fanny Kimble were both arrested and taken off to the jail in Savannah, both of them trying to place the blame on the other. I don’t think there’s much chance of their relationship lasting. Call me crazy. They did confess to the murders in front of a witness—me—so I’ll be testifying at their upcoming trials.
    On the personal front, things have gone to hell in a handbasket. Mostly. Rudy Bauer at the Gazette did some digging and found out I’d been stripping at The Foxy Lady the day of Mr. Butler’s murder. My bad judgment made the front page of the weekly paper, sharing equal space with the story of John Hyatt dressing like a woman. Once the school board got word of my transgression, I was immediately put on probation pending a more thorough investigation, so I don’t know if I’ll have a job come fall or not.
    The possibility of being unemployed has made up my mind about getting my private investigator’s license. I found a correspondence course that was reasonably affordable, and Kate said she’d keep me on at her agency as a contract employee until I take my final test.
    In less than a month’s time, my apartment building will be no more than a pile of rubble. I have no idea where I’m going to go now that someone else has bought the house on Hutton Street, and there’s a shortage of super cheap apartments in Whiskey Bayou, though my mother has offered my old room to me more than once. It makes me sick to do it, but I’m going to have to sell the Z once it’s fixed and discontinue my underwear of the month club membership to make ends meet.
    To make matters worse, I received a nice, thick envelope in the mail from Veronica Wade’s attorney saying she was going to sue me for causing her public embarrassment and damaging her person. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about attorney’s fees and court costs, but my mom always says, “You can’t get blood out of a turnip.”
    I don’t know what it means either, but it seems apt for my situation.
    Things aren’t all bad, though. Nick and I have decided to give our relationship a real shot since there are no more high-pressure situations or dead bodies to stumble over. We’re determined for things to move nice and slow this time around. I don’t really believe it’s possible, and if we last another week before tearing each other’s clothes off I’ll be surprised.
    Of course, the lives of an almost private investigator and a big city homicide detective are always fraught with danger, so there’s the possibility I could be wrong in my predictions. Only time will tell.

If you enjoyed the first book in the Addison Holmes Series, make sure you check out book two, WHISKEY SOUR. Available now at all retailers.

    Here’s an excerpt from WHISKEY SOUR !

    Criminals are mostly dumb. At least in my experience. And Walter Winthrop III, Noogey to his friends, was no exception to the rule.
    I squatted behind a group of dumpsters at the Lone Ranger Trailer Park, ignoring the flies that swarmed around day old Hamburger Helper and