Double Shot Read Online Free PDF Page B

I glanced at Holly Kerr. She kept her chin up and her back straight as she spoke to well-wishers.
If I could just finished the cleaning without losing my temper with the Jerk and accusing him of beating me up, I could count this event as a salvaged success. I scanned the crowd again. Ted Vikarios was still talking. I had to clear away the dirty dishes, whether it made noise or not.
Holly Kerr caught my eye, nodded, and smiled. Then she handed an envelope to a young man and indicated that he was to give it to me. my eyes snagged on Courtney MacEwan, whose rage-filled stare at John Richard — who was again cozying up to Sandee — had not quit. Courtney folded her arms, which made a whole bunch more muscles pop out. Now John Richard and Sandee-with-two-es were exchanging a not-so-surreptitious kiss. I turned quickly, picked up a tray of dirty glasses beside one of the tables, and only vaguely registered footsteps clicking up to my side.
“Ever noticed,” Courtney MacEwan hissed in my ear, “how people can’t wait to have sex after funerals?”
I lost my grip on the tray. Unbalanced, one of the glasses popped upward and spiraled toward the floor. An alert guest, a bodybuilder-type guy with thick, dry blond-brown hair that resembled a lion’s mane, dove for it with an outfielder’s extended reach. Grinning hugely, he held it high. The guest at the table applauded.
“Courtney,” I said through clenched teeth — and a false smile — “get into the kitchen if you want to talk about sex.”
Courtney fluttered sparkly eyelids and mauve-toned fingernails and slithered ahead of me. It was a good thing, too, because the crowd parted like the Red Sea for that low-cut dress.
“And dearest, loveliest Holly,” Ted droned on.
“Was that a trick play with the glass?” an older woman asked me. Her broad face lit up with an admiring smile. “If you toss two glasses into the air, Dannyboy here will be able to catch both of those, too.” The table giggled and leaned forward. I noticed several bottles of wine between the plates, not served by yours truly. In fact, I was willing to bet that the folks at this table had never worked at
Southwest
Hospital
. There were two guys (including Dannyboy, he of the lion mane) who looked like thugs, and three women, two pretty younger ones and the one who’d first spoken to me. Her thick makeup and dyed black hair screamed Aging Hooker. Still, she looked familiar. But I was distracted from trying to place her by Dannyboy, whose drunk, raised voice announced; “If you toss three glasses in the air, I can juggle those, too!”
“And dearest, loveliest Holly,” Ted Vikarios shouted into the microphone, “was a nurturing presence all along.” Registering the disturbance — Dannyboy, the joker who wouldn’t let me pass — Ted glared in our direction. “She even nursed Albert, whom we are remembering today, whom we are trying to remember today” — more glaring — “beginning when he was sick and missed school as a teenager . . .”
“So did John Richard cheat on you, too?” Courtney stage-whispered over her shoulder. “And what did you do to his girlfriends?” I kept a white-knuckled grip on the tray and refused to answer.
“Hey, caterer,” Dannyboy was saying as he tugged on my apron. Behind him, his table laughed wildly. “C’mon, let’s have some fun. With the glasses, I mean.”
I tore myself away and limped painfully toward the kitchen. When I finally made it, I placed the tray next to the sink, then walked over and carefully closed the door to the dining room. I took a deep breath before facing Courtney, who had almost screwed up this already-almost-screwed-up event.
“Doggone it, Courtney, what is the matter with you? I’ve been divorced from John Richard for over a decade! Of course he cheated on me. I didn’t do anything to any girlfriends of his except feel sorry for her, whoever she was. And as to the sex-after-funerals question, how should I know? When I’m