Free RECKLESS — Bad Boy Criminal Romance by Anna Aletto Page B

and walk around to the front of the building and go inside.  The clerk, a scruffy man in his thirties wearing a faded blue uniform and an Alabama Crimson Tide baseball cap, lazily browses the latest issue of Sports Illustrated.  I walk down a short hallway and enter the restroom.  Inside my right pocket I have a faux pearl necklace I bought in a beach shop in Pensacola.  After a couple minutes I walk out of the restroom and toward the clerk at the front desk.
                  “Hey,” I say to him, while holding the necklace.  “I found this on the floor outside the women’s restroom.  It looks pretty valuable.  You have any idea who lost it?”
                  He looks up from his magazine.  “Uh, no, not really.  A whole bunch of people have been in today.  I’d have no idea.”
    “Damn.  I wonder if someone will come back to claim it.”
                  The clerk shrugs.  The phone rings behind the front desk.  He answers it.  He doesn’t say much, mostly listening to a frantic woman’s voice.
                  I know exactly what he’s hearing because I know Angela is the person on the line using the phone booth on the side of the building.  “Hi, I was at your gas station earlier and lost the necklace I was wearing,” she says.  “I pumped some gas and then came inside and went to the restroom.  Has anyone found it anywhere?”
    “Yeah, lucky for you,” the clerk says.  “A customer in here just did.”
    The clerk hangs up the phone.  “Well, that was the lady who lost it.  She’ll be right over.  She said to have you stay so she could give you two-hundred bucks for finding it.”
    “Really?” I act surprised.  “Shit, I can’t wait here.  I have a job interview in less than twenty minutes.”  I stand there a moment, pretending to be conflicted on what I should do.  “I have to leave.  But damn, I could really use that money … Hey wait, you know what?”
    The clerk looks at me.
    “How about I just give you the necklace and you give it to her.  Give me a hundred bucks now and you can take the two-hundred when she arrives.  We’ll split it since I really have to go.”
                  The clerk smiles and says, “Works for me.”  Not having the hundred dollars in his wallet, he opens the Shell station cash register and extracts the money.  I hand him the necklace and he hands me the cash.
                  “Give that lady my best,” I tell him.
                  “Will do.”  He smiles, pleased with the profit he thinks he has made.
                  Around the side of the building Angela is back sitting patiently in the passenger seat of my car.  “Was that good?” she asks me.
                  “That was perfect.  And I have bunch more of those fake necklaces.  Let’s try this some more as we pass through some cities.”  I hand her fifty bucks.
                  “God, that was exciting,” she says, looking at the cash, thrilled with herself.
     
    HATTIESBURG, Miss. – In the lobby of the Plantation Motel, Angela and I stand before the motel attendant.  He’s an older, heavy-set balding man with a grey moustache, wearing camouflage pants and orange plaid western shirt.  The lobby smells of mothballs and he stands behind a faux-wooden desk.  “Can I help you?” he asks.
    “One room,” I say.
                  Angela grips me by the arm.  “You’re only getting one room?”
                  The motel attendant stops, glances up at us.
                  I smile, look at Angela.  “Uh huh.”
                  “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
                  “Why not?”
                  “I’m not going to fuck you.”
                  I exhale a chuckle.  “Fair enough.”
                  She stares at me.
    “I’ll sleep