They say good things happen to those who wait. Those of you who have been waiting for the second Alex O'Hara mystery are in for a real treat.
Alex is up to her old tricks. Biting off more than she can chew. Taking on more than she can handle. Life should be good, right? One big problem. Her main squeeze, Nick Palzetti, disappeared over two months ago. All her investigative skills have been for naught, and life goes on.
She wants to take her investigation agency in a new
direction—background checks for potential spouses. She hopes this new case will
do the trick when a high-powered executive asks for info on her new boyfriend. Is
the man she met on a cruise her Mr. Right or is he too good to be true? On the
same day, Alex gets another case—finding a deadbeat dad. And both women want to
double her rates so she’ll give them highest priority. She can’t believe her
luck. Her finances are on the upswing. But glitchy phones and no internet bring everything
to a screeching halt.
Excerpt:
The outside
door opened, letting in a blast of Michigan winter air. The cold draft shot
down my back as I lay on the floor under the receptionist’s desk. What a way to
spend a Sunday afternoon.
“That better be
you, RJ,” I hollered. “And you’d better fix this piece of shit telephone system
before I tear out every damn wire.”
Two strikes in
one sentence. I’d fallen off the no-swearing wagon again. So much for my
promise to my dying mom who thought women shouldn’t swear like teenage boys.
When RJ didn’t
give me a song-and-dance about why it had taken him so long to respond to my
SOS, I squinted between the edge of the modesty panel and the floor. Oh, no. Dark gray trousers with a
knife-sharp crease grazed the fashionably-correct spot on a pair of highly-polished
gray loafers. Definitely not RJ’s scruffy athletic shoes topped by the ragged
hem of his worn blue jeans.
Shit, shit, shit. Mental swearing didn’t
count.
I had two
choices. Door Number One—stay under the desk and pretend no one was home. Door
Number Two—come out and greet the potential client.
Scratch Door
Number One. I’d already spoken. He knew I was there.
As I scrambled
out, I hit my head on the underside of the desk. “Hell’s bells.”
Strike three.
“My dear girl,
whatever are you doing in that awful place?” The owner of the expensive loafers
had walked around the desk and was peering down at me. “May I give you a hand?”
How about duct tape for my mouth? My
mother must be turning over in her grave. And Pop would be appalled that I’d
given a client a bad first impression of the agency he and Tony Palzetti had started
after high school.
As I scooted
out from among the tangled wires, I also cleaned the floor with my butt. The underside
of the kneehole drawer caught the scrunchie anchoring my ponytail and pulled it
off—the scrunchie, not my ponytail. Through another tangle, this time my hair,
I looked up at the owner of the sexy voice.
Delish, as my Dottie would say. “Money, money, money,” as ABBA sang. Under
his black, unbelted Burberry, he wore monochromatic better than Alex Trebek.
Dark gray suit, a darker gray shirt, and a gray-on-gray striped tie. His blond
hair with its precision cut enhanced his appearance. No barber for this guy.
Had to be an expensive stylist. The businesswoman in me took notice. So did my
lady parts.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Nicholas
Palzetti. There are other fish in the sea than you.
The Case of the Fabulous Fiance is available at:
I hope you enjoy Alex's latest adventure.
Pop around on my blog tour to read fun interviews, stories, and different excerpts from The Case of the Fabulous Fiance.
Blog Tour
