Free Checkered Crime: A Laurel London Mystery by tonya kappes

over lacing up the generic bowling shoes.
    Something in my con artist gut told me something was fishy.
    I leaned over just enough to take the beer and just enough for Jax to hear me whisper, “It takes a con to know a con and you aren’t fooling me, Jax Jackson.” My heart was being fooled by him. Definitely being fooled. But my head wasn’t. I did the “I got my eyes on your gesture” with my fingers.
    The arrogant devil shot me a smile and winked. Immediately I went over to the ball rack where Gia was testing out every single bowling ball. It was the same crap every week. First she’d pick up a ball, put her fingers in it, hold it up to eye level and give it a good once over before she pretended to bowl with it. She did this to every single ball in the rack. And every single time she picked the purple one, size ten.
    “There is something going on with him,” I whispered in her ear as she was eyeing the blue ball with gold flecks all over it.
    “Who cares?” She did her pretend roll.
    “One of these days you are going to let go of that thing and it’ll go right through the display case.” I pointed to the glass case where there were shoes, gloves, balls, and Lucky Strike paraphernalia on sale. Bud was hunched over leaning on his elbows on the counter. He had a piece of straw sticking out of his bearded mouth. He looked so grizzly, you couldn’t see his lips. “Bud and Sheila will not like that.”
    “Why don’t you leave Jax Jackson well enough alone and go hang out with Antonio?” Gia got all sassy by snapping her finger in the air and rotating her neck like she had a crook in it.
    “Have you seen Antonio?” I asked.
    “So he’s gained a few.” Gia chomped her gum and looked over at Antonio. “Okay, a lot. He’s a nice guy.”
    “Fine.” I shrugged and headed over to the shoe counter where Shelia was passing out the lovely accessory.
    “Good evening, Laurel. How have you been?” Sheila had on her skintight v-neck shirt with the bowling balls on it and her black leggings.
    “Good. I need a size eight please.” I smiled. “Your hair looks nice.”
    “Oh that.” She grinned and pushed her fingertips in the sides of her flaming red hair. “Yea, Bud doesn’t like it too good, but I do. Makes me a little frisky if you know what I mean.” She winked before she went to retrieve my size eights.
    What was it with the winking around here?
    “Unfortunately, I don’t know what you mean.” I gulped before I took the shoes. The idea of my feet going into something where thousands of feet have gone, kind of gave me the creeps every single time. I have to physically make my mind not think about it on bowling night. Sheila claims she cleans them real good. I’ve seen what she means by real good and it came in an aerosol can. Still not good enough for me. I carried a can of Lysol in my hobo just for instances like bowling night.
    “You mean that hot guy with the accent isn’t with you?” Sheila pointed her long lean finger with the red hot painted fake fingernail toward my group. “I heard you’ve been carting him around in a fancy new car before stopping at the Windmill to do God knows what.”
    “Oh my God!” I grabbed the ugly shoes out of Sheila’s other hand and marched back to the group, anger boiled my blood seeing Jax Jackson in one of our Here For The Beer tie-dyed shirts. It was all I needed to put me over the edge. “What is he doing in our shirt?”
    Steam rolled out of my ears.
    “Antonio, this is Laurel.” Gia ignored my question by smiling and turning toward Antonio.
    “Is this the babe that’s gonna sleep with me?” A snarky grin tipped his lips making my stomach curl. “I thought you said she was hot?” He turned to Carmine who shrugged.
    “Trust me,” I put very little distance between my nose and his, “I don’t need help finding a date and he sure wouldn’t smell like bologna like you do.”
    Alex Fiddle pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. He