A Dirty Job Read online

  A Dirty Job

  A J.J. Graves Mystery

  Liliana Hart

  Contents

  Dirty Devil

  Other Books

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Dirty Devil

  About the Author

  Also by Liliana Hart

  Copyright © 2019 by Liliana Hart

  All rights reserved.

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  Published by 7th Press

  Dallas, TX 75115

  * * *

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  JJ Graves Mystery Series

  Dirty Little Secrets

  A Dirty Shame

  Dirty Rotten Scoundrel

  Down and Dirty

  Dirty Deeds

  Dirty Laundry

  Dirty Money

  A Dirty Job

  Dirty Devil

  * * *

  The MacKenzies of Montana

  Dane’s Return

  Thomas’s Vow

  Riley’s Sanctuary

  Cooper’s Promise

  Grant’s Christmas Wish

  The MacKenzies Boxset

  * * *

  MacKenzie Security Series

  Seduction and Sapphires

  Shadows and Silk

  Secrets and Satin

  Sins and Scarlet Lace

  Sizzle

  Crave

  Scorch

  MacKenzie Security Omnibus 1

  MacKenzie Security Omnibus 2

  * * *

  Lawmen of Surrender (MacKenzies-1001 Dark Nights)

  1001 Dark Nights: Captured in Surrender

  1001 Dark Nights: The Promise of Surrender

  1001 Dark Nights: Sweet Surrender

  1001 Dark Nights: Dawn of Surrender

  * * *

  The MacKenzie World (read in any order)

  Trouble Maker

  Bullet Proof

  Deep Trouble

  Delta Rescue

  Desire and Ice

  Rush

  Spies and Stilettos

  Wicked Hot

  Hot Witness

  Avenged

  Never Surrender

  * * *

  Addison Holmes Mystery Series

  Whiskey Rebellion

  Whiskey Sour

  Whiskey For Breakfast

  Whiskey, You’re The Devil

  Whiskey on the Rocks

  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

  Whiskey and Gunpowder

  * * *

  The Gravediggers

  The Darkest Corner

  Gone to Dust

  Say No More

  * * *

  Stand Alone Titles

  Breath of Fire

  Kill Shot

  Catch Me If You Can

  All About Eve

  Paradise Disguised

  Island Home

  The Witching Hour

  * * *

  Books by Liliana Hart and Scott Silverii

  The Harley and Davidson Mystery Series

  The Farmer’s Slaughter

  A Tisket a Casket

  I Saw Mommy Killing Santa Claus

  Get Your Murder Running

  Deceased and Desist

  Malice In Wonderland

  Tequila Mockingbird

  Gone With the Sin

  Grime and Punishment

  Blazing Rattles

  To my teachers—Nellafay Isom, Janice Nance, and Harriette Fowler. You do make a difference.

  Acknowledgments

  Getting a book to publication is never a solo venture, and there are a team of people who make my job a lot easier. A huge thanks to my editors, Imogen Howson and Kimberly Cannon, and my cover designers, Damon Freeman and Dar Albert.

  * * *

  And a very special thanks to my own real life hero and resident law enforcement expert, Scott Silverii. Any mistakes made are mine alone.

  Seven Deadly Sins

  * * *

  Wealth without work

  Pleasure without conscience

  Science without humanity

  Knowledge without character

  Politics without principle

  Commerce without morality

  Worship without sacrifice

  * * *

  ~Mahatma Gandhi

  Prologue

  Tobias Pickle was in heaven.

  Back in Watonka, West Virginia, he was a nobody—a laughingstock. People used his business services because they had no other choice. That’s what he loved about death. It was an equal playing field for everyone, and when the good citizens of Watonka met their maker, Tobias Pickle was there to offer them their final sendoff. Everyone needed him eventually.

  But when it came to giving him the courtesy of a simple hello on the street, all of a sudden, he wasn’t good enough. People said he was weird. Even his wife, Melisande, couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him. She said he smelled like dead people.

  He stared at himself in the mirror and added another spray of the Versace cologne he’d picked up at the Duty Free shop at the airport, and then he smiled, showing a slightly crooked incisor. Maybe he was on the short side, and sure, he could’ve spent more time in the gym or tanning bed. But his personality made up for most of the faults in his appearance. He knew his strengths.

  If only Melisande could see him now. He might be a nobody in Watonka, but once a year, when he got to leave that dump of a town and join the rest of his colleagues—people who were just like him—he was a god among men.

  Here he was someone. His friends wanted to be him. They laughed at his jokes and thought he was brilliant. And the women… He sighed and ran a comb through the sandy curls on his head, trying to tame them into submission—the women were worth the price of admission.

  They didn’t look at him like Melisande did, with derision and coldness. In fact, it wasn’t a matter of finding a woman to share his bed. When he was in his natural milieu, it was a matter of deciding which woman would share his bed each night. And it wasn’t always an easy decision. There were so many choices and so little time.

  He had a certain reputation, and more often than not, women sought him out. He’d not been blessed in the looks department, but he was an excellent lover. Romantic and attentive, he saw to a woman’s every need, fulfilling their deepest fantasies, and leaving them wanting more. He had a gift, and who was he not to share it with as many women as possible?

  He patted the bottle of pills in his pants pocket just to make sure they were there. He never left home without them. He was still young and virile, but during this one week of the year, even he needed a helping hand every now and then. He hated to disappoint his ladies.

  Tobias’s smile was smug. Melisande didn’t know what she was missing. Of course, Melisande hadn’t let him touch her in years. The last time he did she’d lain there like a piece of plywood. He’d had to turn her over so her face was buried in the pillow and pretend he was plowing his sweet Lorraine to finish himself off. He might have even yelled Lorraine’s name at the end. But for whatever the reason, that had been the last time Melisande had let him touch her.

  His smile faltered at the thought of her. Ungrateful witch. He’d been good enough to marry when she saw how successful his funeral home was, but not good enough to meet his needs from time to time. She’d called him a pervert. An animal. But he wasn’t. He just liked sex. What wasn’t to like?

  But tonight was reserved for Angelica. He’d never seen her at a conference before, which made her prime pickings. She was stunning, one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, and he could tell by the salacious looks she was getting from his colleagues that the competition would be tough.

  She’d captivated the room the moment she’d walked in. She was small and curvy in all the right places. Her eyes were exotically shaped and as black as her hair. There was a little mole above her mouth, and he was sure once he got her out of that ugly blazer she’d been wearing that she’d have the most magnificent breasts he’d ever seen.

  Even better, she was recently divorced, and he’d been happy to buy her drinks and listen sympathetically to her sob story. By the time she’d started her third Cosmo, she’d told him everything about herself and he’d had his hand up her skirt. He could’ve had her right then, probably in the middle of the bar, and she wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. But Tobias liked to think he was a gentleman and insisted he take her to dinner. He’d told her she deserved a little romance after that prick she’d been married to, and she’d practically swooned in his arms .

  He chuckled to himself. He deserved a freaking medal of honor. And if the look on her face was anything to go by, he was about to have the best sex of his life.

  He put on his sport coat and straightened the lapel. The ladies always loved it when he wore the one with the patches at the elbows. The black turtleneck gave him a professorial air, and he added his horned-rimmed glasses to complete the look.

  He checked his watch, and then sprayed some breath freshener into his mouth. If it hadn’t been for the stupid storm, he would’ve taken Angelica to a restaurant outside the hotel, and then for a moonlit stroll on the beach. He’d never made love on a beach before.

  Angelica was special. She deserved the experience of a lifetime. At least this first time. He was going to take her to the hotel’s nicest restaurant, give her whatever she wanted, and make sure her wine glass was never empty. He’d have her half-naked before they got off the elevator. He was already hard as a rock at the thought, and he patted himself gently.

  “Down boy,” he said. “It won’t be long.”

  He looked around one final time to make sure everything was in place—rose petals on the bed, champagne on ice in the corner, and no dirty clothes on the floor—and then he grabbed his room key and headed for the door.

  His hand touched the knob just as someone knocked. He opened the door automatically, not knowing he was staring into the eyes of his killer.

  “Tobias,” she said, breathlessly. “We really need to talk.”

  Tobias winced. He hated it when his schedule was interrupted, but it was to be expected that things like this might happen during his week on the island. He couldn’t expect to juggle that many women without bobbling a few balls.

  He put on his sympathetic face and said, “Can you come by around midnight? I’d love to catch up, but I’m actually on my way out for dinner.”

  He just noticed the black rain coat she wore was sprinkled with droplets of water, and the hood was up over her head. Surely she hadn’t been out in this weather.

  “Oh,” she said, pouting a bit. He’d always loved her lips, and his gaze was drawn to them. “I was really hoping we could talk now. It’s an emergency.”

  And then she smiled seductively and untied her trench coat, leaving his mouth agape at the sight of her in nothing but black thigh-high stockings and heels.

  He licked his lips and then looked down at his watch, trying to recalculate the evening in his head.

  “I can give you a few minutes,” he said, taking a step back so she could enter the room.

  She smiled and dropped the coat as she passed by him. “That’s all it will take.”

  1

  There was an undercurrent of uneasiness that rumbled through the bar. Drinks were consumed with a voraciousness the two bartenders could barely keep up with, and despite the raised voices and raucous laughter, the howl of the wind rattling the walls and windowpanes couldn’t be drowned out.

  I was settled comfortably in a corner booth with my back against the wall so I could observe the crowd, and I dunked a tea bag lazily in and out of the mug of hot water in front of me. Small pellets of hail pinged against the diamond-paned glass, and I tried to drown out the off-key version of “Danny Boy” being sung by a Hobbit-sized man with scraggly red hair at the bar.

  I watched with fascination as two men braced themselves against the wind and rain and struggled to close the shutters over each of the windows in the bar. It would have been comical to watch under normal circumstances, but as it was, I was amazed there hadn’t been any projectiles bulleting through the windows and impaling hotel guests.

  Some brilliant soul had decided that having the Southeast Funeral Director and Mortician Convention on an island off the coast of South Carolina during hurricane season was a good idea.

  Genevieve Island was a small island—only about thirteen square miles if the tourist brochure I’d read was accurate—but a good part of it was uninhabitable because of the marshes.

  It boasted a large hotel that had been modeled after a French castle, and it sat on the far end of the island, overlooking white sand beaches and cerulean-blue water.

  There were restaurants and shops, all designed to gouge the tourists and still provide a living for the 330 people who called the island home year-round. The only way on or off the island was by ferry, which had made me giggle uncontrollably at the thought of a bunch of morticians being passengered across like it was the River Styx.

  My name is J.J. Graves, and this was my own personal version of hell. I wasn’t a fan of crowds. And I wasn’t really a fan of people—at least not the breathing ones. But sometimes duty called, and this was one of those times. The state of Virginia required I take continuing education classes every year to keep my mortician’s license up to date.

  I also moonlight as the coroner for King George County, Virginia. It’s not a full-time job, which I guess is a good thing. Despite the fact I’ve worked some real doozies of crime scenes, our county is a pretty safe place to live. I’m mostly qualified for the job, considering I spent all those years in medical school and have letters after my name. The best part about being coroner is that I get to work with my husband, Jack, on occasion. He’s the county sheriff.

  But being a mortician is my livelihood, and over the last couple of years, I’ve accepted the fact that my life is turning out different than I’d planned. But I wouldn’t change anything because I have Jack. I’ve found peace with the circumstances that brought me to where I am, and I’m content.

  I inherited the funeral home from my parents after they’d faked their deaths to go on the run from the FBI. But as I’ve learned, the past always catches up with you, and seeing my parents come back from the dead had been somewhat of a shock, to say the least. It’s a story I’m happy to put behind me. At least until the occasional nightmare brings the memories back in vivid color. It’s not every day a girl gets to watch her mother gun down her own father and have her home destroyed in the process.

  But that chapter of my life was closed, and my future with Jack was what was important now. I felt better than I had in as long as I could remember. I felt whole. I felt healed.

  And if I wasn’t stuck in a hotel bar with a bunch morticians while the storm of the century raged outside and trapped us all indoors, my life would be almost perfect. When we’d arrived on Genevieve Island three days ago, the weather had been perfect and sunny. Jack and I had decided to fly down a little early for some relaxation time, and also because there had been workers in and out of our house for the past several weeks after an impromptu explosion and gunfire had rearranged a few walls.

  We’d had a glorious twelve hours of sun, sand, and sex before the first dark clouds had rolled in. A tropical storm had been pushing through the Caribbean and had been headed toward the Gulf of Mexico. But apparently, Mother Nature had the last laugh because the storm had taken a hard right turn at the last minute. Weather stations had assured everyone that it wasn’t anything to worry about, and that it would blow over in a couple of days. I’m not sure how exact of a science meteorology is, but from my perspective, it seems to be more hypothetical.

  The storm hadn’t stopped morticians from the southeast converging on Genevieve Island like locusts. My assistant, Sheldon Durkus, had flown in the day before, but the hotel was so big I had yet to see him. Not that I’d been looking too hard. Jack and I had barely left the room once the rain had started.