Free Back To The Stars: ROMANCE: ALIEN (Alien Invasion Abduction SciFi Romance) (Fantasy Anthologies & Collections) by Clare Morgan Page A

what you’re doing, I really do,” I didn’t appreciate it one damn bit, and if I had any real balls, I’d tell Junior where he could stick my debt. But I knew if I did that, I’d be in a world of pain. “But, seriously, I don’t want to become just another statistic.”
    Junior sighed and blew out a huge breath. I could tell he wanted nothing more than to light a Camel and think for a few minutes. But instead he popped a half pack of fruit flavored Life Savers in his mouth and munched.
    “Okay, I get it. I get it, so how’s about I sweeten the pot a bit. How about if you go out to Arizona on my dime, stay at a swanky hotel, find out which cartel is making this stuff, and maybe set up a connection, I’ll wipe out half your debt to me.”
    “Half. Even if you don’t set anything up, you just go down there and do a little digging for me and then I’ll set up a connection. So what do you say?”
    “You don’t think you’d go for clearing the whole thing if I go? I kind of like the idea of not being into you anymore.”
    “You’ll always be into me, McGee. One way or another, so don’t push your luck.”
    But before I headed out to Arizona, I had one last piece of business to attend to, work I’d agree to take on to keep a roof over my head.

Chapter 7:
     
    I don’t care who you are, nobody says to themselves when they’re a kid: You know what, when I grow up, I want to be a private investigator. Most kids want to be firemen, an astronaut, a movie star, a fairy princess, a superhero (You know, because they’re little kids haven’t quite figured out that neither of those last two things are real.). But none of them say: I want to work at a fast food restaurant, I want to be a certified public accountant, I want to be a garbage man, I want to be a private detective. Because at their impressionable ages, the world is wide open, their’s for the taking. Reality has yet to crash in on them yet and punch them right in the nose and laugh at their dreams.
    Me, I wanted to be Police just like my grandpa and my dad. Whenever I said this when I was 5 or 6 years old, dad and grandpa would light up with huge smiles and dad would ruffle my thick head of curly red hair and say:
    “You keep dreaming, Laurie-girl. Keep dreaming and that’s just what you’ll be.”
    Of course, at the time dad was God and so was grandpa, and I had no idea either one of them was so dirty that it would completely queer my chances of ever becoming a police officer. Hell, their reputations soiled the Morris name so much that there was no way I could even become a meter maid.
    But here’s the reason why no kid will every say I want to be a private detective when they grow up. Picture this scene:
    You’re sitting in your piece of crap 2003 Toyota sedan—which, by the way, you’re sitting in because you can’t afford a newer more comfortable car—and you’ve been sitting in it for the past 12 hours drinking cup-after-cup of bad gas station coffee, puffing on your e-cigarette wishing it was a real one—it’s been 2-years-3-months-and-6-days since my last one, and since smoking was my only vice, I come at it like a booze hound would, one torturous day at a time—and you only ever leave your crappy Toyota to use the bathroom (And if for some reason you can’t make it to the bathroom, you have 4 empty large gatorade bottles waiting. Yeah, I know, you probably didn’t need to hear that.) and to buy refills of the crappy coffee. As far as food is concerned, you have a cooler full of PB’n’J’s and a half a bag of generic, store brand potato chips. You eat like this for the same reason you’re driving the crappy sedan, you’re broke and don’t have enough money to buy a terrible pre-made deli sandwich from the gas station.
    The reason you’re doing this is because a weepy suburban wife came to your offices clutching a wad of tissue, her face teary and gummed up with dried snot. You can tell at one time she was quite beautiful. In