Free Free Draw (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series Book 2) by Shelley Singer Page B

asked if she and Alice could spend the night with me.
    “See, I’ve finished my estimates in the East Bay,” she said, “and I promised Carlota I’d have a look at the steps tomorrow and let her know what I’d charge to fix them.”
    I offered her the cot but she insisted on laying her sleeping bag on the floor. I stuck some paper and kindling in the pot belly, got that going, and added a chunk of oak. Then we turned our backs on each other to undress and got into our respective beds. After the hot tub party, it seemed a little silly to return to our former modesty with each other, but it felt right to do it that way somehow.
    “So what did you think?” I asked her.
    “Weird group.” I agreed. “I got the feeling that almost any one of them could stick a knife in someone if they had the right excuse. Especially that Hanley character. And that Jim.” She yawned. “He’s the kind that neighbors always say seemed like such a nice quiet fellow— until he murdered forty people.”
    “What about the women?”
    “Well, Jesus, that Arlene. Eerie. And of course Nona. Although I would think she’d be more into poisons or curses or something. And Carlota found the body.”
    “Right. But somehow I can’t imagine Carlota taking such direct action. She kind of slides around, you know?”
    “You mean she’s not violent, she’s just sleazy?”
    “Something like that.”
    “She asked me over for a drink tomorrow.”
    “Carlota? Where was Nona when she did that?”
    “In the toilet. I have a feeling only Carlota will be home.”
    I laughed. “Watch out, babe. She was looking at you like you were her very own birthday cake.”
    Rosie snorted. “I never mess with married women. Especially if they’re total twitches.”
    “She may also be a mite confused,” I said, and told her about the anonymous groper in the hot tub.
    “Interesting,” she said, once she stopped laughing. “Things like that never happen to me.”
    “Probably because you refuse to take off your cowboy boots.”
    “Good night, Jake.”
    “Good night, Rosie.”

10
    The Bright Future Home Study Plan Incorporated occupied a two-story office building in an industrial park north of San Rafael. The redwood siding must have looked good a decade before; now it was fading and starting to break loose from the vertical slats that covered the seams. I didn’t bother to drive around back to the parking lot. There were plenty of spaces on the industrial park’s pseudo-streets.
    I pushed through the door into the reception area. My attention was immediately split between the smiling receptionist and a real eye-catcher near the right-hand wall: a spiral staircase about three feet in diameter, bolted through the royal blue carpeting to the floor and dead-ending at the solid acoustical ceiling. A sign hanging from it at eye level said, simply, “Bright Future.”
    I must have stared at this symbol a bit longer than most casual visitors because the receptionist interrupted my musings.
    “May I help you, sir?”
    I looked at her. Teased hair, molded and sprayed. Dimples displayed by an over-wide smile. Long fingernails painted to match her reddish-brown lipstick. She looked like she’d just finished eating raw liver.
    “Yes,” I replied politely. “I’m Jake Samson. I have an appointment with Mr. Bowen.”
    If she could have smiled wider, she would have. I was big stuff. I had an appointment with the president of the company. But the smile was brief. I guessed that my status was only partly resolved. I had an appointment with the president, sure, but what kind of welcome would I get? She buzzed his office. If I was really somebody, Bowen himself would come out to fetch me. If I was nobody in particular, his secretary would appear. The third alternative? Have the receptionist send me back on my own, which could mean I was an old friend— very high status— or they hoped I’d get lost on the way. I was pretty sure I’d get the secretary, since I