Roxy drove toward Paradise, her own little piece of suburbia about a mile off the Vegas strip. If she looked in her rearview mirror, she could see the Westgate Las Vegas. But she rarely looked.
It just reminded her there were people here doing what happened in Vegas, with a yard-long margarita. She might be a bit jealous. But when you lived in Vegas, what happened here absolutely stayed here—with your family and your friends and your coworkers. Not that she didn’t drink, but it generally wasn’t with the abandon of anonymity.
Given her current situation with the police, anonymity sounded pretty darn good. She turned into the parking lot behind her building, pulling into a spot as far away from the industrial-sized garbage bin as she could get. Coming home late at night meant she had to park near the nasty smelling monstrosity all the time. But since everyone was at work, she lucked out.
Just when she thought nothing good could come from unemployment.
She sat in her car and tried to come up with something to do. But she had nothing. No new leads. She couldn’t go out with friends. They all had jobs—like functioning adults.
But they didn’t have the good parking spot. So there was that.
She left the car and walked toward the off-white ridged-concrete building. The reddish clay tile roof angled up, but instead of coming to a peak, it just stopped at the flat roof. The building itself was two stories, with four apartments per floor.
Once inside, she headed up the dark brown staircase. Before she got to the third step, the door to the apartment below hers opened. Gladys Potter stood in the doorway. She was a short, stocky woman, whose pink house shoes matched her muumuu. The sunlight bounced off her dark brown skin. Her dark-gray Orphan Annie curls covered her ears—not that the hair stopped her from hearing everything that happened in the building. She was like neighborhood watch and Enews combined. “Shouldn’t you be at work? Are you on holiday? You been sacked? You still owe me rent for this month.”
Every Harry Potter joke flew through Roxy’s mind as Ms. Potter spoke in her British accent. She was a nice lady, with enough stories to fill a book. She’d done it all. From mountain climbing in Nepal to getting it on with one of the Rolling Stones. If she hadn’t done it, it wasn’t worth doing. She was like a composite after-picture of the most interesting women in the world.
“No, Ms. Potter. Everything is fine. You’ll get your rent.” Don’t let them see you sweat—or they’ll start eviction proceedings sooner rather than later. For the record, she hadn’t been sacked—fired. Not yet anyway.
“Last week, Meredith in 2D came home early. She reckoned it was a simple stomachache and she ended up with salmonella. Went to hospital for liquids and everything. She’s home now, having a bit of a lie in, but she can’t run a marathon anymore. People only come home early when they’re ill or they’ve been sacked.” Gladys had been in Vegas for fifteen years, but that hadn’t erased the British from her vocabulary. Not that Roxy minded. In fact, it was kind of cute.
“I’m not sick and I haven’t lost my job.” Not yet anyway. But there was no way she’d tell the poor woman. Mrs. Potter would worry a hole into the floor. Literally. A few years ago, the kid in 2A had chicken pox, and Gladys paced for a week and a half till the girl felt better.
Or worse, she would show up with a steak and kidney pie so Roxy wouldn’t starve. A sweet gesture, but last time she shared one of her casseroles, Roxy ended up praying to the porcelain gods and wishing for a quick, efficient death. Death hadn’t come, and nothing about that night had been quick or efficient.
“Want to come in for a bit of tea and biscuits?”
“I’m in a hurry.” But she needed to change the topic before she accidentally told the woman everything. “How long has it been since you got a haircut? We might need to have a girl’s day.”
Dark fingers fiddled with the curl at her ear. “Not since we went last month.”
“Let’s schedule something for next Saturday?” Roxywanted to ask her to go tomorrow, but then Gladys would know something was up. She’d worry, and Roxy would be tossing a gifted pie on the down low.
“Can we pop round the grocery, too?”
“Sure. Make your list of things you need, and we’ll go.” Roxy smiled.
“Rent?”
Roxy’s smile disappeared into the desert, where her excuse for not having her rent money was hiding. “Yes. I’ll bring it down later today.” There was no way she had the money for rent, yet. But maybe, just maybe, she had some money lying around.
Gladys disappeared back into her apartment, closing the door. She probably had the pen and paper out already. She was nice a woman—a little lonely, but she was fun to hang out with. Her people watching skills were unmatched. She saw everything. And she shared everything.
Roxy liked their girls’ days. It was nice for Gladys to get out of the apartment. Her kids were grown with jobs and children of their own, and Gladys, despite the fact that she still had her driver’s license, was a menace on the road.
Anyway, Gladys seemed to like their girls’ days too. It gave Roxy some entertainment on the weekends. She had something to do now. Looking for rent money gave her a purpose—even if it was only three minutes of purpose and probably fruitless. She’d try to fit it in between binge watching daytime TV and scrounging for something to eat in her fridge.
Three things to do. Her list was growing.
At the top of the stairs, she unlocked the brown metal door to her apartment and pushed her way in. Home sweet home. It wasn’t big, just a one-bedroom apartment. In the living area, a large screen television sat on a TV stand. Along the side wall, a blue suede-adjacent couch faced the TV. A matching chair sat to the right, angled for a good view out the front window.
Heading to her bedroom, she pulled her phone from her pocket and checked the time. Somehow, an hour had passed since she left Detective MacAuley. He hadn’t called. He was probably done, yet Detective Volunteer hadn’t even sent a text.
She threw on a pair of yoga pants—the ones she’d only bought because Sarina forced her to try yoga. But they were comfortable and forgiving if she overdid the cookie dough. Cookie dough. She could go for some of that right now.
She slid into her Pink! T-shirt and Care Bear socks before shuffling across the light tan mock-wood-plank tile to the galley kitchen. She sifted through one of the dark brown cabinets lining the wall. She didn’t have a pantry, so this was it. A box of crackers. Minute Rice. Questionable bread. An old bag of chips.
She ripped opened the bag of potato chips and pulled one out. Rubbery stale salted grossness slid along her tongue. The bag chip crinkled as she scrunched it shut and tossed it into the garbage can.
That didn’t work.
Things weren’t much better in the fridge. Soda. Ketchup. She didn’t even have eggs to throw together an omelet. Maybe she accidentally left something in the crisper drawer.
Aerosol cheese food product. Score. She grabbed the fake cheese and a can of Coke, setting them on the white tile countertop. Roxy went back into the cabinet and got the crackers before scooping her not-so-gourmet snack up in the crook of her arm. All she needed now was a staged drama. She dumped her lunch on the couch and hit the on button for the big screen. Big screens weren’t only for football fans anymore. They were also for watching a larger-than-life-size Jason Mamoa, sitting around grunting at the Dothraki in Game of Thrones.
She used the remote to find a tabloid talk show. Although a Khal Drogo binge might be fun. Others’ turmoil was always the best medicine when you had no direction, and the man you wanted to call wasn’t blowing up your phone.
A pale woman smooshed into a short skirt, with giant nipples poking through her tank top, shook her finger at some guy missing his front tooth, while another woman in green spandex and a T-shirt screamed at the woman in the short skirt. “.. he don’t got no job. He needs someone who gonna take care of him. That’s me, bitch. You don’t deserve him.”
Then there was slapping and hair pulling. Light brown hair extensions went flying. The censors earned their paycheck as beeps filled the air.
Roxy felt better almost instantly. Her life might suck, but she wasn’t debasing herself on TV to get attention. That had to give her some karma points. Right?
Her cell phone dinged. Sarina. They fired you?
Not fired. On vacation. At least, she hoped it was only a brief vacation. Six days to be exact.
You should come out. A couple of us are doing a happy half hour on the High Roller tonight.
Who’s going?
Three dots popped up and disappeared. The dots started a few times. She didn’t want to answer. Which could only mean one thing.
Cliff, his friend and me.
More dots.
Don’t be mad. Come with us.
Roxy could think of a million things she wanted to do with her newfound time off, and hanging with Cliff and his friend wasn’t on the list.
Sorry. I have plans. Not lying. She had plans with spray cheese.
Roxy dropped her phone next to her on the couch and sprayed some cheese onto a cracker. The cold cheese came out reluctantly. She didn’t have to leave the cheese in the fridge, but it felt unnatural for cheese to be in the cabinet. Thank goodness it tasted the same.
She slid the cracker in her mouth. So good. Fake cheese was awesome.
Her doorbell rang. Ms. Potter. She probably wanted her rent money. Which meant Roxy really should have looked for it. The one thing on her to do list that required action, and she hadn’t even thought about it.
The doorbell rang again.
“Hold on.” She set her lunch on the couch and opened the door. Not Ms. Potter. Detective MacAuley looked the same as he did that afternoon. That didn’t explain why he was here, though. “Making house calls now, officer?”
“Only for some people.”
“What makes me so special?”
He smiled with those teeth and sparkling eyes. “Are you going to let me in?”
“Sure.” She stepped back just as a voice screamed from the television, “You don’t got nothing on me, whore.”
Crap. She draped her body over the back of the couch, reaching for the remote. She hit the power button at the same time she realized she should have planned that move a little better. Her upper body slid until her thighs caught the top of the couch back, giving the detective a view of her ass. She tried pushing herself backward, but that was not going to happen. Roxy let gravity do its thing, sliding forward till her knees hit the floor.
MacAuley’s eyes were on her as she popped up on the other side of the sofa. He had that smile on his face. The one that melted panties—which she was thankfully wearing under the thin yoga pants.
“Sorry. I had to turn off the TV.” She checked the waist band and found it was still around her waist. Thank goodness. No free show.
His attention moved from her to the couch. “Is that your lunch?”
She could deny it, but the the cheese canister and box of crackers gave it away. “Yes.”
“How about I buy you lunch?”
I don’t think that’s a good idea, ran through her mind, but she couldn’t figure out why. Which was probably why it didn’t seem to make it to her lips. She thought about her empty fridge and the free meal he was offering.
“We can go over the information I got from Donnie.”
A potential new lead sealed the deal. “Let me get dressed.” She reached for the box of crackers.
“Go get dressed. I’ll clean up.”
“Really?” The crumbs on the couch seemed to multiply when she stepped away. Embarrassment made her want to cover them all with a blanket. “It’s not your mess to clean.”
“It’s part of the job.” He picked up the cap for the spray cheese, clicking it into place. “I want to.”
“Okay.” She walked toward the hall entrance, but couldn’t keep from watching him tidying up her house.
MacAuley rolled the bag inside the cracker box and pushed the tab shut. He swept the crumbs into his hand. The whole sight was somehow adorable. And hot. The man was cleaning up after her, so she could get dressed. Get dressed.
Her feet took her to her room where she whipped open her closet. This wasn’t a date. She didn’t need to dress up, right? She grabbed a pair of jeans and a silk collared-shirt—okay— she was dressing up a little.
Sarina had left the shirt behind after one of their nights out drinking. She shouldn’t have left it here if she didn’t want Roxy to wear it. Sarina would be on board with her wearing the shirt to impress the detective—if Roxy were hoping to impress him.
She ran a brush through her hair and slid on some lip gloss. She looked good enough to have lunch with a guy—a hot guy with a badge who cleans—or maybe she wasn’t quite that good. She fluffed her hair and pushed up the girls. Better.
She popped her lips. Ready. Her body was getting warm and tingly just thinking about the nice guy wanting to buy her food and cleaning up after her. What was it about a man cleaning that was such a turn on?
That and a man with a puppy—and no shirt.
There went those tingles again. She needed to stop the tingles. She needed to get her head on straight. This was a business lunch with a guy who could be mistaken for a People’s hottest man of the year. Nothing more.
Libido. Checked.
Tingles. Checked.
Remembering the man could arrest her at any moment for a murder she didn’t commit. Reality.