Her Lost Alibi by David Berens (e reader .txt) 📕

one thousand miles away in Florida and there were fifteen people who could testify to that fact.

Amber resolved that she would search the files again to see if any contact at all had been made with the witnesses. She didn’t recall any notes to that effect, but it had been late and she was exhausted. A yawn escaped unbidden from her mouth and she stretched her hands above her head. Just another minute and … she woke several hours later, her head lying on her crossed arms on the kitchen table as the gray dawn was seeping between the vertical blinds. Somewhere down the hall a cat screeched. Pets were frowned upon at the Orchard View Apartments, but if they were clean, quiet, and contained, they weren’t strictly forbidden.

Stumbling to the kitchen, new aches and pains grew into her forearms and elbows sending the needling pin pricks shooting up into them as the blood flowed back into place. She jerked open the cabinet and saw that she had one remaining coffee pod. She held it between two fingers and considered whether or not the fog in her head was worth using it or if she should save it for another day. Inspiration hit and she tossed the dark roast cup back into the plastic basket in the cabinet. She opened the refrigerator and was pleased—no, ecstatic was more like it—to see an Ultra Violet Zap energy drink sitting alone in the door. She had it popped open and was guzzling the sparkling soda in seconds and felt her brain slowly come into focus. She leaned back on the counter and finally, as an afterthought, glanced at the small cuckoo clock her mother had left her. As if on cue, the tiny blue bird popped its head out of the quaint, German-esque cottage and began to sing. Amber nearly did a spit-take when she saw that the clock’s hands were set neatly on the ten and the two.

“Holy crap,” she blurted out, bolting toward the bedroom stripping out of her crumpled uniform as she went.

Forgoing a shower, she grabbed a folded white t-shirt and threw it on with dark slacks. Thankfully, the chief had said while she was doing the digitization work, she didn’t have to suit up. “Casual is fine,” he’d told her. “But not too casual, Ber. You got me? You’re still an officer of the law.”

She grabbed the grape flavored Zap sending a few drops splashing onto the back of her hand. As she jerked her purse off the hook by the front door, she licked it off and burst out into the hall. A black cat hissed, leaped at her, its claws bared, and almost connected with a vicious swipe of razor-sharp claws. So much for clean, quiet, and contained, she thought. But she stepped aside quickly, watching as the cat bounded down the hall and away from her.

She slammed her palms into the glass door to exit the building and found herself in a downpour. Savannah, Georgia averages forty-one inches of rain a year, with nearly all of it coming in late summer. It seemed to Amber that they were getting most of it today … at this exact moment. She jerked open the driver’s side door to the Datsun and jumped inside. As she sat back in the car, catching her breath and wiping the rain from her arms, she realized that her freshly washed shirt was now soaked through and she was—except for yesterday’s bra—an eligible contestant for any reputable spring break wet t-shirt contest.

“Shit,” she moaned, leaning her head back.

No time. It’ll dry. She glanced behind her seat and saw that, thankfully, she had a light coat that she’d thrown back there at some point. It would do as a cover-up until she dried out.

She fired the car’s engine and pulled out of the lot, the passenger’s side wheel bumping over the edge of the curb for the umpteenth time.

7

Lost Alibi

Minter Tweed was sitting in the conference room at the far end of the table, pipe jabbed into his jaw, and tortoise shell reading glasses stuck on the end of his nose. Amber wondered if he knew they were about to fall off. It looked as if the entire contents of the Marcario Morales file had been emptied onto the table in stacks and piles without much rhyme or reason.

“Good mornin’, Miss Cross,” he said, without looking up. “I see you took my advice and slept in.”

At the sound of her shuffling off the coat, he glanced over the glasses at her. “Guess young people today don’t believe in umbrellas or some such, is that it?”

She looked down. Her bra, simple, white, minimal lace, was clearly visible through the damp t-shirt. “Oh, I have one. Just … didn’t realize it was raining until it was too late.”

Tweed chewed on his pipe for a long second.

“Your powers of observation amaze me,” he said, returning to the pages he held in his hands. “Why don’t you see if Mattie has something here you can change into?” He said. “Or there’s a boutique across the square.”

She remembered the cute little shop, but she wasn’t sure there was enough in her bank account to cover anything in the store. “Thank you, but I’m— “

“Mattie will give you the credit card,” he said, shuffling the papers around. “Consider yourself on staff for now. If you’re going to be working out of this office, we can’t have you lookin’ like a…”

He let the pause hang and must have decided that whatever he was going to say was better left unsaid.

“Thank you.”

She walked down to the foyer to see the silver-haired receptionist on the phone. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, the woman smiled and stretched out a hand. In it, she was offering up an American Express Centurion credit card (the invitation only Amex black card.) She winked at Amber and shooed her out the door.

When she returned after a thirty-minute shopping spree thanks