Free Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) by Camilla Chafer Page B

work late at the office until the child was eighteen , so the chances of him or her being ruined by his input and influence were low.
    “How’s anger management?” I asked Jord as he wedged himself onto the sofa, squashing me between Dad and him . Lily gazed at Jord in unbridled adoration. I kicked her shin.
    “It’s amazing. I love it.” He gave me a Cheshire cat grin before stretching his long legs all the way under the coffee table.
    “You’re not supposed to love it,” I told him. “You’re supposed to feel remorseful , bare your soul and promise to never do it again .”
    “ To hell with that mumbo - jumbo shit. Ow, Dad, sorry , okay ? ” said Jord as Dad reached around me and lightly cuffed his ear without saying a word. “No more swearing, got it. Anyway, t he chick who takes the class. She’s got hooters like…” As Jord extended his hands, cupping them, Dad coughed politely right before my mother walked past and smacked him over the head with a magazine. “Ow! Jeez, Mom! No wonder I have anger issues. Anyway, the view makes the soul - bearing stuff just about manageable.”
    “Poor you. How you suffer.”
    “I do,” Jord agreed. “ Tomorrow night we’re going to talk feelings again. We have to talk about the event that brought us there and how we feel.”
    “Yeah? How’s that going ? ”
    “I was piss ed off and that punk deserved a broken nose ,” said Jord decisiv ely. “He was lucky I was off balance.”
    “You might want to adjust your story before tomorrow night,” I suggested.
    “No worries. I plan on squeezing a tear. She’s big on hugs for the ones that cry. I’ve been practicing my sad face in the mirror.”
    I sighed at his dedication and shook my head. Asking a Graves man to bare his feelings was like asking a hungry lion to play nice with the stray dog that just fell into its den: it wasn’t going to happen. They’d rather just get messy.
    "Jeez Louise, w ould you look at that," said Dad, nodding at the scene that flashed onto the screen. The local news channel ticker flitted across a screen crowded with onlookers . We watch ed as a covered stretcher was loaded into the back of the Montgomery morgue mobile, as it was known locally , before the anchor came back into view, recapp ing the event . Ron Harris , said the caption underneath , forty-two, killed in a hit - and - run , then a number for any eye witnesses to call in. "What kind of asshole plows into someone and leaves them to die in the street like a dog?" Dad asked, with a shake of his head.
    "Dunno, Dad."
    "Bad karma will come."
    I cut a sideways glance at him. "You been reading one of Mom's magazines?"
    "No. I saw it on one of those psychic shows on television."
    "You need to get out more."
    "Tell me about it."
    "You need to put your shoes on, open the door and leave the house and do all the stuff you couldn't do when you were a cop."
    "Funny, Lexi. Funny."
    "Don't forget your keys."
    After a dinner of my mother's baked salmon, new potatoes and greens, topped off with chocolate cake , I went in search of Garrett and caught him sneaking a cigarette on the back porch. He hid it guiltily behind his back when I slipped through the sliding door, pulling it closed behind me.
    "I'm down to one a day," he said, returning the cigarette to his lips when he saw it was me. I drew in a lungful of tar , as well as other carcinogenic gases .
    I put my hands in the air. "I'm not judging," I said. Then coughed.
    "A year ago , it was twenty a day," Garrett continued . "I'm nearly there. I’ll quit soon. "
    "Good for you , Gar'. D o you know a detective named Adam Maddox?" I asked, framing the question as casually as I could.
    "Sure. Maddox w orked homicide a while ."
    "Brown hair, blue eyes, a bout six - one?"
    "That's the one. Why?"
    I thought about that for a moment. I didn't want to say anything about what went down at Green Hand, so instead , I said, "Oh, a girlfriend wanted to know."
    Garrett raised his eyebrows. "I don't