Red Sole Clues Read Online Free PDF Page B

spending another night in this house. I’m waiting on my aunt to pick me up. She really needs to get here fast before my mother gets done and I have to look her in the face. I’m an adult. I know that she has sex, and I’m perfectly fine with that. But knowing and witnessing are two different things and I need at least twenty-four hours of sex distance before I can face her again.”
    “That’s more than reasonable,” Rosemarie said. She cocked her head to the side and listened intently as the mattress squeaks stayed steady. “But don’t worry. She’s going to be preoccupied for a while. They’ve got a nice rhythm going. They’ll be at it for at least another hour. You know I once dated a man that was in his late fifties. There’s something to be said for age. That man could go for hours without stopping.”
    “That doesn’t sound so bad,” I said, trying to be supportive.
    “Are you kidding me?” she asked, appalled. “This body was not made for athletic sex of that magnitude. Don’t get me wrong. I like to dig in and get dirty. But that was Olympic-level sex. After three hours of thrust time my lady parts were numb and I was nodding off right as he was getting going. I had to break things off. I wouldn’t have survived.”
    Why did I always engage? I should’ve known better. But that’s how friendship worked. One of you made a declaration, and if the other didn’t engage in the conversation it just made you look like an asshole.
    “Hey, they’re revving things up in there,” Rosemarie said. “They might be done sooner than we thought.”
    She was right. Mom and Vince had indeed picked up the pace, and accompanying moans sounded in harmony with the squeaky mattress. Listening to the crescendo was going to push me right over the edge, so I ushered us out the front door, along with my small travel suitcase.
    We were now standing in the cold and drizzle, but sometimes escape was more important than hair and makeup. Granted, I could pretty much count on one finger the number of times anything was more important than hair or makeup. This was the South, and by God you’d better put on your best face and hair to shop at the Piggly Wiggly, otherwise you’d be the center of gossip for days. I was used to being the center of gossip, so it didn’t bother me quite as bad as it once had to think Myrtle Strong was staring out her front window while I stood in the rain and let my perfectly straightened hair crinkle around my face.
    A bright red Hummer pulled up in front of us, just in time, rolling right over one of the big planter urns my mother had set at the end of the sidewalk.
    “Are you going on a trip?” Rosemarie asked. “And is that Scarlet Holmes? I thought she was an urban legend. Your family’s been known to exaggerate a time or two.”
    I narrowed my eyes at Rosemarie. “All legends come from bits of the truth,” I said primly. “And my family was one of the town’s founders. Of course things are going to get blown out of proportion at times, but for the most part everything you hear is true.”
    “All right, all right. Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m just saying, Scarlet’s infamous.”
    “For sleeping her way through the Nazi lines?” I asked skeptically.
    “No,” Rosemarie said, a confused look on her face. “Because she single-handedly stopped Francois Pinoit while she was working as a spy in France. I heard she bested him with nothing more than a paperclip and a book of matches.”
    Okay, so maybe not everything about my family was mostly true. I’d never heard this story about Scarlet. But Scarlet had a tendency to make up her own history.
    “Scarlet and I are working a case,” I said. “We’ve got to go to Florida for the weekend.”
    “Oh, that sounds way better than what I had in mind. Having margaritas in Florida sounds much better than having margaritas in Whiskey Bayou. I bet it’s sunny and warm.”
    “Umm—” I said, trying to think of a delicate