Lover's Lane Read Online Free PDF Page B

move.
    “I’m flexible.” He settled into a chair in front of Tracy Potter’s wide, well-organized desk.
    Flexible. As if. He could just hear his partner, Kat, hooting in his ear. He hadn’t been on a real vacation since he’d graduated from college and stopped going on the annual yacht club billfishing tourney to Baja with his granddad. His ex, Marla, had given up nagging about getting out of town after a few years. The amount of time he devoted to his profession had been just one more strike against him in the marriage game.
    “Great. I’ll pull up the listings we have left. My husband, Glenn, will be happy to take you around to see them tomorrow morning.” She glanced at her Rolex. “I’m afraid I’ll be closing up in a few minutes. Our son’s T-ball practice is this afternoon.”
    T-ball. Jake had spent plenty of stolen time sitting on hard park bleachers watching his sister Julie’s kids when they played T-ball to know it was for the younger set. Five-and six-year-olds, as far as he could remember.
    Kids Caroline Graham’s son’s age.
    “I understand.” Jake stood up, checked to make sure the town map was still hanging half out of his pocket, giving him the look of a tourist. “I’m staying at Rose Cottage. Have your husband leave a message, and I’ll be ready.”
    Jake checked into the B and B one street off of the main drag, a comfortable white clapboard cottage surrounded by an English-style garden trimmed with lattice and flooded with roses that his sister would have oohed and ahhed over.
    Colin Reynolds, owner and host, greeted him. The silver-haired retiree in a black cable-knit sweater was handsome enough to model for Modern Maturity .
    Reynolds cheerfully informed him that wine and cheese would be served from five to seven in the living room, so all the guests could meet and chat.
    Jake’s second-floor corner room had a distant view of the beach, if you stood on your toes and pressed your cheek against the wall. There was enough cabbage rose wallpaper and matching fabric to make his head spin. The spindly legged Victorian furniture scattered around didn’t look strong or comfortable enough to suit him, but he figured he wasn’t going to waste much time away from L.A. lolling around indoors.
    He quickly showered, changed into a pair of slacks and a casual black sweater. Then, to avoid making small talk at happy hour in the living room, he used the time and his cell phone to call Kat at the office.
    There was night and day difference between Kat Vargas and Tracy Potter’s phone manners. Kat was clipped and efficient, a no-nonsense, take no prisoners private investigator, five-four in her stocking feet. Born in Hawaii of Hawaiian, Portuguese, and Anglo ancestry, Kat made part of her college tuition dancing the hula and hip-busting Tahitian numbers in a Polynesian review.
    In her spare time, Kat had earned a red belt in tae kwon do.
    Bright and determined, Kat had convinced him to take her on as his apprentice for the two years experience she needed to qualify for the licensing exam. She’d quickly impressed him with her intuitive investigative skills, so much so that when she passed her test, he asked her to become a partner in his quickly expanding business.
    When he lowered himself to the edge of the bed, it melted beneath his weight. A circus of floral pastel pillows threatened to smother him as he tentatively leaned back and tried to stretch out as he listened.
    “Your mom called,” Kat informed him. “When I told her where you were, she said she forgot that you told her you were leaving. She didn’t really need anything, just wanted to say hi.”
    He could hear Kat rustling through notes on the other end of the line, imagined her in the back office in his two-bedroom condo. He reached for the pen and scratch pad next to the phone on the nightstand, glanced down at the B and B logo. More roses. He jotted the word Mom .
    Kat moved on. “I got a good lead on the Anderson case today.