Not Suspicious in Hollywood: Not in Hollywood Book 5 Read Online Free PDF Page B

though, I was cold, wet and
wanted to find my way to the nearest shower so I wasn’t really in the mood to
start an argument.
    “Is this your father?” asked Vale, looking
nervously at Lee.
    Lee beamed.
    “Acts like it, doesn’t he?” I said. “He’s
my boyfriend’s father.”
    “The cop,” Vale said.
    I nodded.
    “Ready to go?” asked Lee.
    I sneezed in reply and pulled the blanket
around me again.
    “I think that means yes,” Lee smiled at me.
    We’ll see you tomorrow?” Vale queried.
    I nodded as Lee hustled me out of the
station.
    Once bundled up in the car I could feel
Lee’s eyes on me.
    “You know I would feel much safer if you
were watching where you were going,” I said tightly.
    “You need a new job,” Lee said, thankfully
returning his eyes to the road.
    “I don’t need a new job,” I said tiredly.
    “You definitely need a new job. The odds of
you not getting hurt are very quickly running out. Do you have any idea what it
would do to Jake if anything happened to you?”
    I did know what it would do to Griffin. I
also knew that, in his own way, Lee was trying to protect not just his son, but
me too. I put a hand on his arm.
    “I’m okay,” I said softly.”
    “Today you’re okay,” Lee said calmly. “I am
just a bit concerned about what will happen tomorrow. You’re a disaster magnet,
Trudie. One of these days your luck is going to run out.”
    I sat there silently. There wasn’t really
much I could say. I never went looking for these situations. They just seemed
to find me.
    Once Lee had dropped me off I stood in my
shower and let the hot water wash away the chill that had entered me. It wasn’t
so much the sight of Jolena’s body that bothered me. I’d grown up on a farm so
I had been introduced to the concept of death and the cycle of life when I had
been young. What bothered me was knowing the devastation that Ramos would be
going through. Not only would she be dealing with the death of her girlfriend
but she would also be facing the truth about Jolena’s infidelity and that was
going to hurt her badly.
    After my shower I started writing an email
to Monique, trying to explain the situation that I had found myself in, but I
just kept staring at a blank screen. Throwing random words on the screen didn’t
help me either. I was becoming so frustrated with my inability to craft even
the most basic of messages that I was grateful to hear a knock on my door.
    I opened it to find Crystal standing there.
    “I need you and Griffin to come to dinner
tonight,” she said as she walked past me.
    “Why?” I closed the door and followed her
as she walked into my kitchen and started making herself a coffee.
    “My mother is coming over for dinner. I
need you there to keep me from doing anything drastic and I need Griffin there
to provide some distracting eye candy to keep her attention divided so she
doesn’t come on to Edwin.”
    “I don’t think we can make it tonight,” I
said slowly, interested to see how upset Crystal was and the way she was taking
it out on my coffee machine. I nudged her aside and took over the coffee making
duties while I still had a working coffee maker.
    “Why not?” Crystal demanded.
    “There has been an incident at work,” I
said, refusing to look at her.
    “Please tell me you didn’t find a body.”
    I smiled at her weakly. “I really wish I
could.”
    Crystal threw her hands in the air. “I
spoke to you only a few hours ago and you were looking for a goat. How do we
get from looking for a goat to finding a dead body?”
    I passed her a coffee. “I found the goat at
the lake and the body was in the lake.”
    “Drowned?” Crystal asked.
    I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. I
saw the body, went to pull it out and she was dead.”
    “Could it have been an accident?” Crystal
asked.
    “It could have been, I guess.”
    “So, Griffin’s working the case?”
    I shook my head. “No, not this time. There
are some new detectives working