Free Command Indecision (Lexi Graves Mysteries) by Camilla Chafer

would ever think I was a PI. So far, he's been right.
    Undercover sounds sexy, but let me get this straight: it's not. Being undercover is like having an itch that needs to be scratched for seven hours straight. It's annoying and it won't go away. Undercover means days, nights, weekends. It means bailing on friends, missing family dinners, working my dialing thumb to a nub, while pumping my growing network for information, and getting myself into situations where people actually think it's okay to shoot at me. A good PI is like Solomon: a smooth operator. I'm more of an accidental operator. A strictly moral upbringing by my second generation Irish parents means I'm not so keen on lying to people, so I try not to. Instead, I'm just a sketchier version of myself who begs forgiveness later.
    However, as I found out when I busted a sabotage case a couple of months back, going undercover is sometimes the best way to get to know people. And if there's one thing I've learned in my years temping, it's that no one ever takes notice of the temp, so long as she does the filing, smile s sweetly and kowtow s to the human furniture in the office.
    Apparently, as I presented myself at the counter in Captain Mitch McAuley's office at eight a.m., working in the administrative assistants ’ office wasn't going to be the big wow on my résumé that made me want to go back to temping. Go figure. No matter what I thought of the private investigative biz, temping was worse.
    "Mitch , uh, Captain McAuley, said you'd be joining us," said Ruth , the office manager and a fellow civilian, as she handed me the sign-in book. Chestnut hair swung in waves around her shoulders and her eyes were watery and tired. "We don't usually take temps, but Mitch said your husband works on base and you've worked in an office before. Besides, we are in a pickle without..." She trailed off, her eyes straying to Jillian's desk . The bare surface was stripped of everything, but a beige computer monitor, keyboard, mouse and telephone .
    "I heard what happened," I said, offering my sympathy face.
    Ruth gave me a weak smile, one that didn't reach her eyes and gulped. "We're all so sad. It could have been anyone of us here instead of Jillian."
    "It was tragic." Tragic that she put herself in Jillian's place, instead of just feeling sorry for her; but if that's what hit her empathy buttons, far be it from me to poke that beast.
    "Absolutely." Ruth sniffed. "We miss Jillian so much. Oh, her poor sister! It doesn’t bear thinking about. Come through." She opened the gate for me and I crossed into the office. "You won't have to do all her jobs, but we'd appreciate your help with the general office duties as we're all sharing Jillian's work until we get someone permanent. So, you'll just be monitoring the desk, signing visitors in and out, running documents over to other offices on base, some typing and filing."
    I mentally sighed at the filing bomb. "Sounds great," I said, stretching my lips into an enthusiastic smile. It slid back to a normal grin after I decided no one could look that happy about filing. Ruth appraised me as though I'd just escaped a secured facility and she was calculating how many sharp instruments she needed to hide. "I'm happy to help," I tacked on, with a decisive nod.
    "Okay then. Let me introduce you to everyone. Over there is Denise, she's t our purchasing assistant , and Gretchen, in logistics and there's Tammy, but she's off sick today. You probably won't meet her until next week, seeing as you're only with us part-time. Mitch did say the job was part-time, didn't he? Jillian was earning a degree so she went to college a couple of days a week," she explained, smoothing her hair behind her ears as the other women looked up on hearing their names and gave me a nod . Ruth’s fingers shook slightly, and she seemed to need to put her hands on something, anything, because as soon as she finished fidgeting with her hair, she started to play with her blouse