A Wild Fright in Deadwood (Deadwood Humorous Mystery Book 7) Read Online Free PDF

actually following through.
    Maybe I could write Detective Hawke a note and have Doc pass it to Cooper to deliver. Something like, Can we film out at Harvey’s? ending with a Circle Yes or No option.
    More laughter bubbled up, making me swallow a couple of times to keep it all down. “I’ll see what I can do,” I told Jerry. “Is there anything else?”
    “There was something else. Let me think for a second.”
    Was it something to do with why he had commandeered Mona’s desk?
    I looked through my purse for some lip gloss while I waited and then double-coated my freeze-dried lips. My stomach growled, reminding me that I’d skipped breakfast this morning due to nerves. Going to the Carhart house had given me a solid case of indigestion, but now my hunger had returned tenfold. Apparently, facing off with Prudence was more troubling than learning of Wanda’s death.
    “Oh! Now I remember.” Jerry shuffled through the papers on Mona’s desk, finding a business card and holding it out to me.
    “What’s this?” I took the card.
    Jerry answered before I had a chance to let the name on the card register. “Rex Conner stopped by earlier. He’s back in town and really needs a place to rent.”
    I glared down at the name on the business card, waiting for my hair to catch on fire.
    Rex Conner was my children’s sperm donor and a no-good, rotten son of a bitch. After our last showdown in this very office, I was amazed at his audacity to show his face yet again. I was going to have to follow through on my last threat and leave him kidney-less in a bathtub full of ice.
    “Something wrong, Violet?”
    “No.” I dropped the card in my purse. “Nothing I can’t handle …” without some castration snippers . “I’ll be back later.”
    “I may not be here when you return. I have an appointment down in Rapid. Nobody else will be here either.”
    “Where’s Ben?” Ben Underhill was my equivalent at work in the male form, only he played with balls better than I did.
    My lips twitched. Then again, Doc might disagree on that point. I quietly groaned at my own joke. I’d been hanging around Harvey way too long.
    “He’s in Hill City. There are a couple of vacation home properties down there that a friend of mine is considering putting on the market. Ray went with him. He has a client there who is interested in acquiring some more land.”
    Ben’s uncle, Ray Underhill, held the World Record for most consecutive sexist offenses. He and I shared a garden abloom with dislike and watered our loathing daily while glaring at each other across the office. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d wished for a voodoo doll of him to tear limb from limb.
    As much as I detested Ray’s stinging insults, he had nothing on Rex Conner’s venomous bite. Rex seemed to keep forgetting about those papers he’d happily signed after the kids were born. The ones where he agreed that he’d have nothing to do with his offspring, which included a pass on paying child support. Now that he was in need of a fake family to land some job promotion up at the old Homestake Mine turned science lab, my children and I were suddenly a prize worth claiming.
    Oh, the irony that was my life.
    Jerry watched me sling my purse over my shoulder. “Drive safe, Violet. We’re supposed to get snow tonight.”
    “I heard they’re calling for a few inches.”
    He looked out at the dark sky. “It could be even worse.”
    Ha! It usually was in my case.
    I left via the back door and hopped on over to Doc’s office, shutting out the cold behind me.
    For a few moments, I let the door hold me up while I breathed my way through the choking bout of rage clogging my throat. I let my purse thump onto the floor.
    What was I going to do about Rex? Nobody at work knew our history and I wanted to keep it that way. The fewer who were in on that secret, the less of a chance the truth might slip out in front of my kids.
    Addy and Layne needed a real father, not someone