Sunday Snippet: Ill-Timed Case

Hello, September. Here's hoping you're not as maniacal as August. I'd love for the weather to make up its mind and hold for a while. I don't imagine that will actually happen.

Had a lovely day off to travel to the Hocking Hills area to meet up with my cousins on my mom's side of the family. We're hoping to make it an annual event. I couldn't take the whole weekend, but it was so much fun to spend time with them. Bonus points for being close enough to my daughter's location for grad school that I could take some of the things she forgot.

Still insanely busy with work and I'm happy for the new projects coming my way. Also kind of thrilled they're all a bit different so it's not the same thing for each manuscript.

Had an okay week of viewing. I got to watch a few things when I needed a break from wall-to-wall words. Sometimes it's nice to have a minivacation to reset my brain.

Caught an episode of The Batman and enjoyed it. It's a two-parter so I'm hoping to watch the second half this week.

Enjoyed an episode of Classic Rugrats. I don't really remember this one, but the later seasons of the show weren't watched quite as many times as the earlier ones.

Got an episode of My Life Is Murder watched and loved it. Again, Madison really stole the show. And the wink-wink-nod to Xena at the end was fun and awesome.

Started an episode of Signora Volpe and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens when Sylvia's undercover assignment is discovered.

That's pretty much it for the life update this week. Tonight's post is from Ill-Timed Case, a novella that brings a couple together for a bit of cat-and-mouse fun.

Here's the miniblurb:

Rex Van Adder, private investigator, has more cases than he can handle. Enter Gracie Lee, along with a dead body, and Rex scrambles to keep his head above water, especially since he knows Gracie is involved but can't figure out how.

And a snippety peek…

The first gray streaks barely lit the sky before Rex ended up back in the alley where his mystery woman disappeared.

After a careful look in the shadowy nooks and crannies, he huffed out a breath. "Think I finally figured out how she disappeared." She had to be using one of the old storefronts as an access to the underground system.

He went back to check more footage to be certain his hunch panned out. "I'll be damned. That's a genius-level move." He got up to pour some coffee, mentally planning how to surveil the city block she'd used as her access point.

He'd narrowed her route to down four stores and wanted to get back to see if she'd left a trail he could pick up.

He started for his desk and got a call. This time from Avery.

He didn't both with pleasantries either. "If you want to see the evidence, you can come down to the precinct. Maybe you can make sense out of some of the things we found."

Rex's lips quirked. "What's wrong, Marlow. The gray skies and rain making it hard for you to concentrate?" A little needling never hurt, especially when Marlow deserved it for dragging Rex out of bed in the wee hours.

Marlow snorted. "More like zero sleep for over twenty-four hours and a dead body with your name on it." He huffed out a sigh. "Seriously, nothing about this murder fits normal parameters. And you always have your nose in weird shit nobody understands."

Yeah. Thanks to his professor dad.

Rex tsked. "Marlow, you're not wrong about that. But why the rush? You've barely had time to get the autopsy results." Not that they'd probably learn anything new.

Marlow grumbled something under his breath before responding. "Look, Rex. Someone got to this guy when pretty much no one was supposed to know he was in the city. Either your information is wrong, or there's a clue we're missing in McGuinness's stuff. Whichever it is, the trail's going cold and not just from the fucking rain." He paused then added. "I'll be here for another hour then I'm being forced to take mandatory downtime for the next twenty-four hours, which means…"

Shit. "Barkerson's taking over until you're back." While Marlow reluctantly worked with Rex and other private detectives, Stu Barkerson absolutely refused to consider anyone outside the twelfth precinct as an ally and regarded all of them with suspicion.

Marlow chuckled. "Yep."

Rex grimaced. "Be there in ten." He ended the call.

Damn. He'd hoped to buy some time to track down the mystery woman. Then again, if he didn't want to deal with his cranky old man on an hourly basis, Rex needed to get a jump ahead on Dougray's case. Except … his mystery woman and McGuinness's murder were connected. And he would find out how.

His gut never steered him wrong.

I'm having such a terrific time writing this one. Rex and Marlow are a hoot, and Rex is nudging me to set Marlow up in a future story. Stay tuned!

 

That's it for this week.

Cheers!

Skye