Read Whiskey’s Gone (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 3) for Free Online

that now. I was in too deep. It was my way out, a fancy money-making scheme to foil the city fathers. And afterward, I’d somehow break free—how, I didn’t know, but Whiskey would help me, I knew she would. She knew how. Hell, she knew too much.
    But when I listen to her, she helps me. Got to listen to her again, got to do something right, maybe clean the kitchen, spruce the place up a bit. Can’t drift forever. Got to get rid of the people pissing up my life, that’s what Whiskey would say, and she’d be right. First thing tomorrow, I’ll start. I’ll hit the straight and narrow, they’ll see.

Cookie's Snit

    “Have you seen him before?” I asked Lorraine.
    “Never.”
    She reminded me that Whiskey moved in only a few months ago.
    “If Robbie finds out about that snake …” The rest of her thought blew away on a gust from the open window.
    “But if he’d been around when you first met Whiskey—”
    “I never would have rented the apartment to her with him even remotely in the picture.” Lorraine shivered, walked over to the window and shut it.
    “He didn’t have anything good to say about Whiskey.”
    Outside, black clouds were moving our way.
    Cookie pursed her lips. “What are you talking about? He loves her!”
    Lorraine and I looked at each other. The rain had started, sounding like pellets thrown against the glass. The lights flickered and thunder rumbled in my eardrums.
    “Don’t you see?” Cookie persisted, her voice rising against the storm. “He’s Maddie’s father. He’s got a stake here.”
    I didn’t buy Cookie’s paternity theory. Sirens sounded in the distance.
    Lorraine echoed my skepticism. “He couldn’t father a feather.”
    Suddenly the room flashed with a yellow-green light.
    “She’s a feather, all right. Didn’t you hear him?” Cookie’s voice was raised.
    “I didn’t pay much attention to his words.” Lorraine glared. A bolt of lightning so vivid I thought it was a giant strobe or Gran coming to fetch me was followed by a clap of thunder that shook the foundations four floors below us.
    Cookie cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted, “He said she flitted from one man to the next.”
    I couldn’t figure out why she was taking Arthur’s side, but she was beginning to get to me. “He was a slobbering drunk.”
    “He wasn’t slobbering. He loves her. What was it he said about her?” Her voice was hoarse.
    “That she was starstruck,” I shouted back.
    “Right. Starstruck conjures waywardness, not misguided sweetness.” Cookie splayed fingers through her golden locks. “But she’s more than starstruck. She’s a slut.”
    Lorraine’s face was almost purple. “Not on your life. She’s a good mother. Responsible. Never late with the rent.”
    In that way some women have of fighting, raw silence took over. I thought the room was going to explode with what we weren’t saying. Meanwhile the storm was hushing.
    “Whatever. I have a slew of questions for Arthur, whether or not Whiskey shows up—his reptilian personality intrigues me.”
    “So run after him.”
    Cookie wasn’t getting it. “I want to snag him on his own turf where I can get a better feel for him, and for that matter, for Whiskey and her past and why she’d ever date a sleazebag like that.”
    Disregarding me, Cookie was leaning against the wall doing something in her notebook. In a few seconds she tore off a piece of paper and stuck it in my face. Shafts of light played around the edges of the charcoal image, a sketch of Arthur. I expected it to talk.
    “Why haven’t you kept up with your art?”
    “Because I’m a writer. I paint with words.”
    I showed the drawing to Lorraine, who gave it a reluctant nod. “Looks just like the worm.”
    Cookie pursed her lips. “I’m going to prove you both wrong. I’m going to take it to Whiskey’s old neighborhood, knock on some doors, see if anyone recognizes him.”
    While I scanned Arthur’s likeness into my phone, Lorraine