Read 20 Takedown Twenty for Free Online

looks odd what with the lumps from the olives, but it contains major food groups, it doesn’t involve cooking, and the olives keep the peanut butter from sticking to the roof of your mouth.
    I took a shower and brushed my hair out into a bunch of soft curls that skimmed my shoulders. I went with an extra swipe of mascara, some smudgy liner, and shiny lip gloss. I had a closet full of jeans and T-shirts, but my choices for dresses were limited. I had a very sexy red dress with a swirly skirt, a professional-looking suit, a blue dress I wore to family functions, and a black dress that was moderately to pretty damn sexy.
    I settled on the black dress, tugged it over my hips, zipped it up, and checked in the mirror to make sure my boobs weren’t falling out too much. I shoved my feet into black spike-heel pumps and transferred essentials from my messenger bag to a small red evening clutch.
    I was thinking if this was work-related I probably should take my gun, but the gun wouldn’t fit in the clutch, and truth is, I didn’t have any bullets anyway.
    I felt a change in air pressure, got a hot flash, and Ranger knocked once and opened the door to my apartment. He was wearing a perfectly tailored black suit, and a black shirt open at the neck. He looked me up and down, and the corners of his mouth hinted at a smile. I assumed this meant he liked the dress.
    We were silent in the hall and elevator, Ranger being only slightly more talkative than my hamster. We crossed the parking lot to his black Porsche 911 Turbo S, and he opened the door for me. It was a great car, but not the easiest to enter in a tight short skirt and heels. I grabbed my hem with both hands and managed to get in without my skirt riding up to mybelly button. Not that it would matter entirely, since Ranger had already seen my belly button. Still, he hadn’t seen it lately, and I thought it was a good idea to keep it that way.
    “Where are we going?” I asked.
    He drove out of the lot and turned left. “We’re going to a viewing at the funeral home on Hamilton.”
    “Is that the whole date?”
    “Yes. Unless you want it to be more.”
    “Why did you tell me to wear a sexy dress?”
    “I wanted to have something to look at besides the deceased.”
    “So I’m just eye candy?”
    “The eye candy is a bonus. This is a viewing for Melvina Gillian. Does the name mean anything to you?”
    “She was murdered. Her body was found in a Dumpster a couple weeks ago.”
    “She was found ten days ago. She was kept on ice until now, pending the autopsy. Rangeman provides security for her son, Ruppert. He asked me to look into her death.”
    “Aren’t the police investigating?”
    “Yes, but Ruppert wanted a private investigation as well. I don’t usually do this sort of thing, but Ruppert is an important client.”
    “Do you have any leads?”
    “In the past eighteen months three women have been found in Dumpsters in Trenton. They were all robbed and strangled. They were all in their seventies. All lived alone, in different parts of the city. So far the police haven’t identified any suspects.”
    “I knew one of the women. Lois Fratelli. She lived in the Burg a block over from my parents.”
    “Did you go to her funeral?”
    “No, but I went to the viewing with Grandma.”
    “Anyone of interest there?”
    “Not that I noticed. It was packed. There are a lot of Fratellis in Trenton, and there are always lots of people who come out for a murder.”
    “Like your grandmother?”
    “Grandma comes out to
all
the viewings. She gets extra dressed up for a murder.”
    Ranger pulled into the small lot attached to the funeral home.
    “You’ll never get a spot here,” I said. “This lot fills up at six o’clock for a murder.”
    He beeped his horn and a black Rangeman SUV pulled out of a space. Ranger parked in the space, and the SUV drove away.
    “So it sounds to me like I could have sent you to this viewing with your grandmother,” he said, cutting the