Free Swimsuit Body by Eileen; Goudge

think he still has it in for you?”
    â€œApparently, not all of us have moved on.” I recall his hostility toward me at the crime scene. “Which is why I’m covering my ass. I need an alternate theory in case he tries to pin the murder on me.”
    Ivy motions toward my iPad. “I don’t see anything here that looks suspicious. Not counting creepy pet photos.” She refers to the image of Prince in a doggie tux.
    â€œHer assistant must know where all the bodies are buried. So to speak,” I’m quick to add. “We can enlist her.”
    â€œWe?” Ivy brightens. “So we’re really doing this?” Typical of her, she’s excited about the prospect, apparently not having had her fill of murder and mayhem—which included at least one brush the law, a close call at the wrong end of a shotgun, and my near death at the hands of a psycho—when we were investigating my mother’s case. “But why would she want to help us?”
    Just then, I hear a scratching noise from the hallway and the muffled sound of Prince whining. My cat is pacing back and forth outside the closed door to my office, tail twitching. Ivy gives me a questioning look, and I sigh as I get up to lock Hercules in my bedroom so I can let Prince out.
    â€œBrianna owes me.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I recite the Serenity Prayer along with the others in attendance at the AA meeting on Thursday evening of the following week. The basement social hall at St. Anthony’s, with its chipped paint and scuffed linoleum, fluorescent lighting and metal folding chairs, is hardly conducive to serenity, but I’m surrounded by my brethren, and there’s strength and hope in that.
    After the reciting of the prayer, there are various announcements and the distributing of chips—for thirty days, ninety days, ten years—the latter being a ceremony that takes place monthly, and which I always look forward to, even when it’s not my turn to receive a chip. I look around me and see mostly familiar faces. People who have come to seem like family … if family is the disparate, quarrelsome bunch seated around the table at Thanksgiving that makes you wonder how you could possibly be related to them. There’s the woman called Mustang Sally, who was in and out of homeless shelters and state-run drug rehab clinics before she got sober; Junior R., a former gang member, with his shaved head and Latin Kings tat; Sue Ann G., a blond-bobbed soccer mom, looking sporty in Lululemon yoga pants; Matt L., who did time at San Quentin, where he found Jesus … I watch the speaker for tonight’s meeting, Jim O., shuffle to the podium. Jim had thirty years of sobriety before he got hooked on painkillers while recovering from hip surgery. If he can go out, it can happen to any of us. That’s why we’re here. To be reminded.
    McGee and I head for the refreshment table after the meeting. He had decided to grace us with his presence after all. Better yet, he doesn’t smell of alcohol. He’s his usual charming self, however. “You look like shit, Ballard,” he observes as I pour myself a cup of coffee.
    â€œYou would too if you hadn’t slept in a week.” Between the nightmare images that keep me awake at night and the press calling at all hours, I haven’t had more than four hours of continuous sleep in the eight days since I discovered Delilah Ward’s dead body. I stir a spoonful of sugar into my coffee and help myself to a chocolate-chip cookie, homemade, naturally—Sue Ann was in charge of refreshments for this week’s meeting. “Last night, I was woken at three a.m. by a reporter calling from L.A. I don’t remember what I said to him, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t fit for print.”
    He