She's No Angel

Every man dreams of having a supportive little woman standing behind him. He just doesn't realize that eventually she's going to be holding a cast-iron skillet aimed directly at his skull. Why Arsenic Is Better Than Divorceby Jennifer FeeneyTHE SIGHT OF A TALL BRUNETTE with a great ass trudging down the side of the road would have been enough to make Mike Taylor slow down for a better look, even if the woman hadn't been barefoot. And swinging a tire iron. And, judging by her tight shoulders and clenched fists, mad as hell. But she was all of those. Which made her more interesting. He quickly ran through the possible explanations. "No broken-down car," he muttered as he pulled his foot off the gas pedal of his Jeep, slowing to a crawl a few yards behind her. "No houses around." Since leaving the highway, he hadn't seen a single building or gas station. Just a few road signs counting down the miles to hell...make that Trouble, PA. So maybe she'd been mugged and had fought off her attacker. Or maybeshe'dbeen the attacker and was still clinging to her weapon. His eyes shifted to the tire iron, looking for any telltale signs that it had been used to beat someone recently. Dripping blood, hair, any of that stuff. He saw nothing. The woman trudged on, impervious to the dig of gravel into her feet as she stuck to the shoulder of the two-lane road. Her soft, filmy dress swirled around her thighs, the afternoon breeze kicking it up a bit higher with each step. High enough to let him know her backside wasn't her only terrific feature. The woman had some legs to go along with her obviously leather-skinned feet. He suddenly suspected she was talking out loud. Something was making it impossible for her to hear the six cylinders pistoning a few yards behind her. Judging by the bounce of her brown hair across her shoulders, he suspected her onesided conversation was a heated one. "Interesting." He wondered why he wasn't tense, as he'd normally be if he spied a person armed with a dangerous object. Not that this woman emanated danger. Everything about her screamed frustration, not rage. Which he would have understood if he'd seen a disabled car, a broken cell phone nearby and a pair of woman's shoes...what, stuck in the mud? Carried off by an animal? "Uh-uh." Didn't add up. She was becoming more and more intriguing by the moment. He hadn't expected to stumble acrossanythingintriguing this weekend. Not here, anyway, in the lousy little town his grandfather had been holed up in for the past year. His whole reason for coming here to visit was to try to convince Mortimer to bail out of Trouble. But pissed-off brunettes swinging tire irons did intrigue him, and would have even if he wasn't a cop. He had no choice but to stop. No, he wasn't exactly in his jurisdiction. And, since transferring to NYC Police's cold case and apprehension squad a few months ago, rarely had cause to interact with current victims of crime. Or, considering the tire iron and her visible anger, potential suspects. When he interacted with the living at all in his more recent cases, he generally spoke to former neighbors or family members. Or even descendents, given the age of some of the case files. Frankly, he didn't mind that as much as he thought he would when he'd been ordered to accept the transfer a few months ago. At that point, being forced "for his own good" to leave the twentieth-precinct vice squad had had him ready to tell the city to take their badge and shove it. It had felt like a kick in the gut. An undercover investigation into a high-end club drug ring run by a slime named Ricky Stahl had ended in a number of indictments...and a few embarrassed public officials with meant a transfer for Mike. His bosses claimed the area had gotten too hot for him. Mike thought the transfer was more likely payback from embarrassed politicians. Whatever the tKelly, Leslie is the author of 'She's No Angel ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373772155 and ISBN 0373772157.