Read Just Deserts (Hetta Coffey Series, Book 4) for Free Online

grabbing his damp little hand and giving it a wrist-snapping yank, “it’s just too bad I didn’t arrive in time for lunch. I’m a barrel of laughs with a bottle or two of tequila under my belt.”
    His smarmy smirk uncurled. “Excuse me, Miss uh….”
    “Hetta Coffey, a su servico . I guess you’re the big cheese around here?”
    Totally discombobulated, he squeaked, “You are engineer Coffey?”
    “In the flesh.”
    “But, you are—"
    “Very welcome,” interrupted the other Mexican man, smoothly recovering Shorty’s fumble and running with the ball slicker than Jerry Rice in his heyday. “I am Juan Orozco,” the handsome man said, “and Señor Racón here and I have looked forward to your arrival.”
    “ Mucho gusto , Señor Orozco. And you too, Señor Ratón,” I said with what I hoped was a sincere look on my face while using the Spanish word for mouse. Mouse, rat, what’s the diff?
    His eyes narrowed. “It is Racón, not Ratón.”
    “Oops, sorry.” I turned back to Juan Orozco, and since I’m a sucker for Julio Igesias types, granted him a million peso smile. “It is señorita, señor . Por favor , call me Hetta, or if you prefer, Café .”
    “Oh, I like café , very sweet.”
    I guffawed. This Mexican I was going to get along with. He flirted fair.
    On the other hand, if Rat Boy had to work within a mile of me for the next few weeks he might as well gnaw D-con and get it over with. I continued exchanging pleasantries with Juan Orozco until he excused himself to usher the Baxter types into a meeting room somewhere, leaving me with Racón.
    His beady little eyes darted about the room, as though seeking a hole in the wall through which to make his escape from mean old me. I really wanted to bat him around a little longer, but perhaps I had overreacted? Maybe, shocked that I turned out to be a woman, he was simply flustered and just kept stepping into it? So, in the name of working relations, and being the charmer that I am, I gave him a shot at a fresh start. Sort of.
    “So, Señor Ratón, looks like we will be working together.”
    He sniffed the air. “Engineer Coffey, since you seem to have a problem remembering my mother’s last name, perhaps you would prefer my father’s: Hayat.”
    “Oh, yeah, I’ve stayed in his hotels.”
    He gave me a pained look. “H-A-Y-A-T. And, I do not work. I hold a position.”
    That’s it . “Doggy hide the bone?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Never mind. What position would that be?”
    “I am liaison to the mine.”
    “Oh. What do you liaise, exactly?”
    “The Hayat family have vast holdings in the mining industry. I am here to watch over our interests.”
    “Ah, I get it. Happened to me, once, so I feel your pain. I screwed up so badly the company banished me to Mogadishu. That’s okay, I’ll try to get things running smoothly around here so you can get out of this hell hole, back on the old polo grounds.”
    His cheeks bloomed purple and he developed a bad case of guppy mouth. He finally got it; he’d been saddled with Überbitch from Hell. He quickly fobbed me off on Maria and fled.
    Maria’s English was excellent, and she made it clear she was delighted and fascinated that a mere woman sent Racón scampering for cover.
    Now that I was her hero she’d be a wealth of info as to where they kept the skeletons. As always, if you really want to know what’s going on in a company, make friends with the gals who assist.
    Maria steered me into a dimly lit back room where faded drawings, manuals, spare parts lists and the like were crammed into wooden file drawers, then gave me a quick rundown on the so-called filing system. I pulled out a folder, and with it a plume of dust. Maria apologized and handed me a tissue. What I needed was a gas mask. Hadn’t these people heard of Valley Fever?
    A sneezing fit sent me back into the front office. “What are the chances of getting that place vacuumed?”
    She looked doubtful, but said she would try to get