Mr. Monk is a Mess Read Online Free PDF Page B

Summit.
    Actually, he’d be my first date in months anywhere. But I’d be on my guard. I might even bring my gun.
    That was because my taste in men lately hadn’t been so good. The last couple of guys that I’d dated turned out to be killers, which is enough to make any woman wary of romance.
    Or make her enter a nunnery.
    But I still had a pulse and the desires that went with it, so I wasn’t ready to give up on love altogether.
    When I turned around, Morse was heading back into her store and Monk was coming my way.
    “Did you ticket him?” Monk asked.
    “Yes,” I said. “But I made it a warning citation rather than a violation. I think we scared him straight.”
    “Good,” Monk said. “I believe we’re making a real difference in this community.”
    “So do I,” I said and I meant it, too.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Mr. Monk Gets an Invitation
    I t was our last night in town before our flight back to San Francisco, where we would have three weeks to prepare for our big move east.
    Monk went to dinner at Morse’s house while I shared Chinese takeout with Sharona and Disher at their kitchen table. It was a rare pleasure, since Monk refused to share entrées and for me that was half the fun of eating Chinese food.
    Disher quickly wolfed down his dinner. He had only a few minutes to spare before having to attend a city council meeting. It probably would have been less hassle for him if he’d had a quick bite at the office, but he thought it was important to come home and see Sharona, even if it was for only a few minutes over chow mein and kung pao pork.
    That said a lot to me about Disher and how he felt about Sharona. He was a good man and she was lucky to have him.
    After he left, Sharona got out a carton of Oreo Cookie ice cream and brought it and two spoons to the table. It was an evil, wretched thing to do and I loved her for it.
    Outwardly, Sharona and I were very different. I was a California girl, casually dressed and sun-kissed. Sharona was loudly, aggressively, and proudly a child of New Jersey. Everything about the way she walked, talked, and dressed reinforced every cliché about women from that state.
    My style in clothes was loose and casual. I didn’t show much skin, though I was hardly a prude. I just didn’t like men leering at me. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I thought I had a spectacular body that would drive men wild if they got a peek at it. Men will leer at the slightest hint of cleavage, which is all I can muster anyway.
    Sharona dressed tight and flashy, with skirts as short and necklines as low as she could find. She thought she was hot and liked it when men stared at her. And they did. So did most women. She wore a push-up bra that shoved her boobs in her nose, not to mention everybody else’s.
    I used very little makeup, only enough to hide my flaws and accentuate my strengths. But Sharona used a lot, highlighting everything, using color like pinpoint halogens so that nobody would ever miss her face in a crowd.
    I had short hair that I didn’t do much with, and I had no desire to change that. She had big hair that she twisted, shaped, colored, teased, curled, streaked, and extended in all kinds of ways.
    But below the surface we were a lot alike.
    We were both strong willed, fiercely independent, and ready to fight for what we believed in. We’d both been single mothers with limited incomes, so we knew how to survive and how to stretch a dollar. And we’d both worked for Adrian Monk and cared deeply for him, despite the misery he caused us.
    We probably understood each other better than anyone else could.
    So it was no surprise that she sensed my anxiety about my trip home and brought out the ice cream.
    I stuck my spoon in and helped myself to a big scoop.
    “I know what it’s like to move across the country and start a new life,” Sharona said. “Just thinking about all the things you have to do is so emotionally overwhelming you almost feel paralyzed.”
    I swallowed my ice