Lock, Stock, and Feral by Addison Moore (free e novels .txt) 📕

“Or what?” she muses.

“Or I’m going to tell Dad,” Hux says with a stern look and Mom laughs right in his face.

“Your father and I have been divorced almost as long as we were married. You won’t have to tell him. I’m having lunch with him and Gwyneth tomorrow, I’ll tell him myself.”

Gwyneth would be Jasper’s mother. Yes, I know. It’s odd to have my mother-in-law also play the part of my stepmother, but what will really be awkward will be the divorce. With every subsequent marriage my father has, it seems his tolerance for the union only grows shorter. Jasper and I are not looking forward to the fallout.

Mom looks my way with a short-lived smile. “So who’s next on your hit list, Bizzy? Got any suspects you’d like me to track down? Where’s the investigation taking you next? Edison? Bar Harbor?”

“France?” Macy gives a greedy grin to my mother because she just bested her at her own game. “Changing the subject won’t work.”

Mom nods at her oldest daughter as if the game was on. “Where to, Biz?”

“I don’t know. I’m hunting down a man by the name of James Foreman. He’s tall, dark hair, used to play basketball in college, I’m assuming, and he works at the deceased’s publishing house.”

A lusty moan comes from Macy. “I’m in. I say we hunt this man down tonight.” She wastes no time in clicking at her phone and Mom chuckles.

“I’m a pro,” Mom says, winking over at Georgie.

“So am I.” Hux lets out another hard groan as he holds my mother’s phone an arm’s length away. “You sent him nudie pictures?”

“Give me that!” Mom snatches her phone back with ease, but only because Hux all but surrendered it. “Those are tasteful pictures from the waist up—and there might be a few of my backside.”

Mackenzie retches from the next table over and about six different people run for cover.

Emmie nods my way. “I’ll take Mack for a walk along the waterline. Cooling off her feet might help.”

“Why did you have to say feet?” Mackenzie grumbles as the two of them stagger toward the sand.

“I’m not nude in those pictures. I’m covering my nipples with my arm,” Mom protests in an effort to maintain her integrity.

Little does she know that went out the back along with her derrière.

Hux points a finger her way. “Delete those. The last thing we need is him threatening to sell them.”

“Romero would never do that.” She hugs her phone to her chest. “You don’t know him the way I do.”

Hux takes a breath. “I know him enough to realize he’s going to need more money.”

“And so what if I give it?” Mom tosses up a hand. “It’s my life. And by the way, no—I don’t plan on sending him another dime, or another picture.”

Macy nods. “At this point, any more photo inspections might be a liability on your part. Good thinking using your hands as a bra. That can give the girls just the right lift to make them look as perky as ever.”

Mom ticks her head to the side. “Well, I wasn’t born yesterday. There’s a reason I chose that pose.”

“Mom”—I tap my fork to my plate—“do you have a picture of this man?”

“I sure do.” She fiddles with her phone and flashes it our way and the entire table is stunted into silence.

“Holy guacamole,” Georgie pants. “I gotta get myself on that dating app.”

“Holy power stick, Batman.” Macy’s jaw unhinges and I think she just drooled. “He’s freaking hot.”

She’s not wrong. Staring back at us is a picture of a shirtless muscle man with tan and oiled abs that glisten in the sun as he relaxes under a palm tree.

“What?” Mom balks once again as she powers down her phone. “You don’t think I’m capable of landing a man half my age and twice as good looking, do you?”

Hux shakes his head. “Mom, it’s not that. It’s just—that’s obviously a fake picture. It’s a stock photo. I’ll be able to prove it in a hot minute.”

Mom rises in a huff and grabs her purse in haste. “I’m leaving now. You know it’s funny how nobody batted a lash when your father brought home an entire parade of bikini-wearing twenty-somethings—Bambi, Barbie, and Betty Boop to name a few. I’ll just let you chew on that.”

She takes off and we let out a collective breath.

“How do you like that?” I say. “Mom just served up a side of guilt to go with that lobster pie.”

Hux knocks out that last bite on his plate before swallowing it down. “It doesn’t change the fact she’s being taken for a ride. Keep me posted, would you? Thanks for dinner, Biz. I’d better get Mack home and try to get some dinner in her, too.” He gives my sister and me a quick embrace, lands a kiss to Georgie’s cheek that leaves her swooning, and then takes off for the sand.

“Well, ladies”—Macy says, gathering her purse—“I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a hot date out in Edison tonight.”

Edison is the sleazy town adjacent to Cider Cove where nothing but toil and trouble happens. It’s wicked, vile, and full of thugs.

“There’s no way I’m letting you go to Edison tonight,” I tell her. “It’s bad enough I have to worry about our mother.”

“Oh really? And here I thought you’d offer to drive. That hot date is with James Foreman at a club called The Right Stuff.”

I gasp as I quickly grab my own purse. “If we hurry, I’ll get one last suspect to quiz before Jasper closes out the case.”

“Yeehaw!” Georgie hitches her thumb to the sky. “If all goes well tonight, I might land me a man of my own who’ll need me once he loses his wallet.”

I nod her way. “Something tells me the odds are in your favor.”

Macy bleeds a dark smile. “And if all goes well for me tonight, I’ll be driving a power stick back to my place.”

Something tells me we’ll all