If You See Kay Shift

  A Badge Bunny Booze Humorous Mystery

  Quinn Glasneck

  Fiona Quinn

  Tina Glasneck

  If You See Kay Shift is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ©2019 Fiona Quinn and Tina Glasneck

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover created by Chandell Aikman Sites

  Publisher’s Note:

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  Thank you for your support of the authors’ rights.

  Edition: 01-20190810-01

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

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  About the Authors

  To fur babies

  1

  Tuesday

  I paused as I pulled my seatbelt across my lap to watch Rex fold his six-foot-three body into the passenger side of his silver Ferrari.

  I swiped my thumb across my lower lip to make sure I wasn’t drooling as he powered back the seat to make room for his long legs. His muscular thighs were wrapped in jeans that had been run through the washer enough times that they were faded and buttery soft, begging to be stroked.

  He pulled the safety belt into place, letting it rest low on his hips.

  Whew! Just sayin’.

  “There’s a reason you do this.” I tried to cover over the wanton imagery as he turned to catch me grinning down at his, uhm, lap. “I’m trying to figure it out.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, his warm Texas draw hid the makings of a chuckle.

  “Every time we drive through a small town, city, or get into traffic, I’m the driver.”

  “Mhmm. Can’t blame a man.” He reached out a finger and drew it from where my hand wrapped around the stick shift up my arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “I like the way you work that shift.”

  “This one here?” I petted my hand down the shaft, back up again, and spun my fingers around the knob as I slicked my tongue over my lips.

  Woosh. His blood visibly left his brain on a zip line south of the border. It took him a moment to shake his head and get his thoughts circulating again.

  I put the car into gear, starting us back down the side of the highway, gathering speed to cut into traffic. “I think at lunch we need to order room service,” I said as I checked my mirrors.

  “That’s a plan I can get behind.”

  And that’s exactly where I imagined him, which made me do my own kind of shifting around as I tried to neutralize the tingle enough that I didn’t plow Rex’s car into the guy in front of me going like twenty miles an hour under the speed limit.

  Rex was an oilman. Exiting oilman. He was converting to all renewable energies and something about decomposing hemp plastics. Rex and I met a couple of months ago on a plane ride when we were both headed to the same emergency wedding for one of my besties, Melanie, who also happened to be Rex’s (almost the same age) niece. On that trip, I had the good fortune of being bumped into the first-class seat next to him.

  We hit it off with a bang.

  And now we’d just had a fabulous two days of bigger bangs. The fun kind.

  Yes, oh yes, Rex Parker was some kind of yummy. And a genuinely good soul.

  Rex had a penthouse in Atlanta as well as a ranch in Texas. In Atlanta, he was working to make sure he was doing his thing to save the planet with an oil to renewables transition team. And lucky me, he happened to be East Coast just in time for my days off, and Kay’s close call.

  Last Thursday, my best friend, Kay Fitzgerald, was hit by a driver who was distracted by sending a text message. Kay’s car was crushed like an aluminum can. But she, thank God, only got a few bruises from her safety belt and some rather aggressive dermabrasion from her airbag.

  Rex to the rescue!

  Rex had called while I was at the hospital to check on Kay, saying I was on his mind. And he generously offered his help. Kay could have his car until the insurance got everything straightened out. Or longer, he didn’t care.

  “Thank you again for being so nice to Kay,” I said, reaching up to adjust the rearview mirror.

  “It’s the least I can do.” Rex took a sip of his coffee. “Besides, I rarely drive this car. I prefer a truck, but sometimes I’m with people who can’t climb up into the cab.”

  “Women in pencil skirts?”

  “Granny usually wears muumuus.” He sent me a smug look, telling me he liked that I might have sounded a tad jealous.

  I didn’t think I was jealous.

  Was I jealous?

  Huh. I’d have to meditate about that one. “You’re telling me you bought a rare four-door Ferrari to shuttle Granny around?”

  “I like rare toys,” Rex said with a grin. “I bought it because I like the looks. I like the power. And Granny thinks it’s a hoot to ride in. But for anything more than say ten miles, I prefer my trucks. For me, it’s an out to dinner kind of vehicle.”

  “Okay, but that doesn’t explain why you have me drive when there’s shifting to be done.”

  “I can’t lie.” He offered up a lopsided grin. “I like the way you manhandle that stick.”

  I shifted from second, to third, to fourth, enjoying the power.

  Kate’s needing a car was just another of the near misses that had been going on in my little world in these last few months. Rex had his own near-miss at Melanie’s wedding. Someone wanted him dead and came darn close to seeing that through.

  Too darned close.

  It still made my heart race.

  Kay and I showed up in the nick of time to get him the help he needed. Rex didn’t owe Kay or me anything. As a friend, though, Kay was willing to take Rex up on his car offer. He hadn’t specified Ferrari when he’d said car. Neither Kay nor I had speculated what kind of vehicle it would be.

  Boy was Kay going to be in for a surprise.

  In the wee hours of Sunday morning, after my bar, Hooch’s, had closed, I hitched a ride with a friend of mine to Richmond to catch a red-eye down to Georgia. Exhaustion had helped me through my normal claustrophobia induced airplane panic. In Atlanta, I not only picked up Rex’s loaner car but spent a very nice time learning what it meant to “Cowboy Up.” (In my own definition of the term, woohoo!)

  On the surface, my having some adult fun with Rex Parker was not my usual go-to. I’m a badge bunny through and through. I liked my men to wear dark blue uniforms with shiny gold badges over their hearts, symbols of their promises to protect and serve. I liked even more that they wore their tool belts loaded, riding low on their hips, and ready for action.

  At a glance, Tycoon Rex didn’t make a lot of sense. Except that, in his spare time, Rex volunteered for the police SWAT team in Texas, putting his combat military skills to good use. Yup, right behind a man with a gold badge, I liked a man in his military uniform. There weren’t that many military men wandering around where I lived in Jamesburg, Virginia, though.

  I peeked over Rex’s way. I’ve never actually seen Rex in his SWAT uniform, but I was there once when he was racing into the fray to save a child who was endangered. My imagination painted the uniform part into place just fine.

  And I did mean fine.

  “You keep licking your lips when you look at me, BJ, and we’re going to pull off at the next flea-bag flop house along this highway so I can satisfy that appetite of yours.”

  I sent him a pout then flicked on my blinker to move around the slowpoke in front of me.

  “What’s this important meeting you’ve got planned for this afternoon?” he asked. “Any way you can call in, and we can get back to your bar later? Spend a little more time on our room service lunch break?”

  “This one’s been on the books for a while. There’s an event planner chick in town. She’s running a ShifterCon in Jamesburg this week and wants to stage some kind
of marketing thing at the bar, leading up to the bigger event. I’m not sure yet what that looks like. She’ll tell me at today’s meeting. Something about speed dating for scientists. I don’t know. She’s rented out the bar for the night, drinks and everything. This is going to make my bottom line very happy, well the bottom line with the accountant anyway. My other bottom line will have to be satisfied with a quickie.”

  “ShifterCon.” He pronounced it slowly, letting it roll around his tongue like he was tasting the flavor for the first time. “That’s a new one on me.”

  “People who are into shape-shifting—werewolves, bears, squirrels…”

  “You’re kidding with that last one. Squirrel shifters? That’s not a thing.”

  “I’ll bet you a thousand bucks.”

  “That means it’s a thing. It’s a thing?”

  “Yeah, one of my servers, Justice, was looking up stuff for us about the ShifterCon, and there’s a big following for squirrel shifters.”

  “That’s nuts.”

  I snorted. “You know, to each their own. Who am I to judge?” I asked as we sped down the road.

  It was hard to hold this car back; its engine growled under the hood. Rex said it was like a bull in a chute, antsy to be let free to show its power. If I let the car go the speed it wanted to, I’d get pulled over by a cop.

  True, I didn’t mind at all when a cop pulled me over, but that was when I was in the car alone and could spend time doing some quality flirting. It just wouldn’t be the same with Rex sitting beside me.

  As I thought that, my foot went down on the gas pedal.

  “Woah there, Slick. They’ll lock you up for sucking the paint right off the cars we’re rocketing by.”

  I looked down at the speedometer to see that I was inching toward a hundred. “I couldn’t even feel it in this car.”

  “She does purr. I guess it’s a might late to ask, but does Kay know how to drive a manual?”

  I lifted my foot and watched the gauge slide down to seventy before I touched my foot back into place on the gas pedal. “I don’t actually know. If she doesn’t, I’ll teach her.” I sent him a smile. “Thank you for lending the car to Kay. And thank you for these last couple of days. I’ve had a great time.”

  “I have too, BJ.” He reached over and rested his hand on top of mine. “And miraculously, we’re almost through our time together safe and sound.”

  “Safe and sound?” I glanced his way.

  “Well, you know, you kind of have this thing for finding dead bodies.” He twisted in his seat to face me. “I’m not disappointed that you didn’t stumble over anyone’s remains while we were together. Just surprised is all.”

  I wrinkled my nose at him. “Don’t jinx this. We still have almost a whole day, and then we’ll have spent almost four whole days together dead body free.”

  “A record.”

  “Stop.” I gave him the side-eye.

  It was true. Sigh.

  “From the stories I’ve heard about your crime-solving skills, I’m surprised you aren’t on the police force yourself. Or, you know, that you don’t drive around in a van with ‘Scooby-Doo’ painted on the side.”

  “I do cops, I don’t want to be a cop.”

  “Yeah, I get that’s your kink.”

  “Kink?” I gave him a full head swivel for that.

  “Turn-on?”

  “Better.”

  “I don’t understand why you didn’t become a cop yourself. You’d be excellent at it—smart, brave, intuitive, compassionate. And you seem to find all your own murder cases to work through, stumbling over bodies as you make your way through life.”

  “Stop! I’m done finding dead bodies. After I found you in your truck this side of the Pearly Gates, that was that. I swore that was that.”

  “Then you found my brother face down in the pond.”

  “Technically, that was my Rottweiler, Twinkles.”

  “Technically correct. Are you going to answer my question? Why not become a cop?”

  “I had a bad experience, once.”

  “With a cop?”

  “With a ride-along. It’s a long story.”

  “Just so happens I’ve got some time on my hands. How about you tell me about this bad experience ride along. Were you in cuffs at the time?”

  “Psh. I’ve never been cuffed in the back of a police car in my life.”

  Rex sent me a “now we both know that’s not true” look.

  “For possible criminal activity, that is,” I refined. We were to the small town now, and the speed limit signs dropped from seventy to thirty-five in less than a heartbeat. I stomped on the brake to comply with the law. “Sorry about that. Speed trap. Okay, so I was in this program that’s called Citizens’ Police Academy. I thought it might be a great way to meet some new friends.”

  “Friends.” He made air quotes.

  “Stop or I’m not sharing my story.”

  He laughed. “Let me guess, you got caught shining some guy’s badge behind the bushes. When was this?”

  “I was twenty, still in college. Okay, so I get in the car, and my ride-along cop is this long skinny fellow. Wiry, I guess people would say if they were being kind.”

  “Not your type.”

  “Yeah, and also not the occasion for shining badges. I shine badges when cops are off the clock. Mostly. Sometimes. Anyway, off I go. Immediately, I’m thinking, yeah, this might be the right job for me because he’s driving twice the speed limit as he’s going to all the normal places he checks for nefarious activity. He’s pulling people for traffic violations and stuff, and it’s fine. Then we get a call over the radio. The guy, Officer Sprat—”

  “There’s a children’s rhyme about Sprat.”

  “He could eat no fat. Which seemed to be the case with him. And he wore a wedding ring. I didn’t ask to see a picture of his wife to see if she could eat no lean. Seemed the wrong way to go asking a personal question like that.”

  “Probably.”

  “So, Officer Sprat gets this weird little giggle then he flips on lights and sirens, and boom, off we shoot down the road.”

  “High-speed chase?”

  “For three seconds.”

  Rex chuckled, low and sexy. “You make it sound like coitus interruptus.”

  “It kind of was, to be truthful.” I wrinkled my nose. “Anyway, it was only three seconds long because the guy they were chasing turned into a parking lot. We’re the backup unit. The first guy is already hauling the man out of his car. They do the field sobriety test, and I’m thinking, he’s doing great, let him go. I mean, I was standing there trying to do what they were asking that guy to do, and I was kinda failing at the whole stand on one-foot thing. The other cop was watching me sway and stagger, he talked to Sprat while looking my way, and I thought they were going to arrest me.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know, going on a police ride-along while intoxicated?”

  “Is that against the law in Virginia?” Rex asked.

  “Could be.” I shrugged. “It’s illegal to hunt raccoons on a Sunday after three a.m. Surely, there are laws on the books about riding in cop cars and sobriety. But they didn’t even ask me if I was drinking, so that was all cool.”

  “Good to know. Did they end up arresting the guy?”

  “Yeah. They told him if he took the breathalyzer, and it was under one, he could call a friend to drive him home. If it was over one, he’d be arrested. He blew a one point eight.”

  Rex whistled. “And still the man was more balanced than you, BJ?”

  I swatted at him. “Then the cops put him in cuffs and were putting him in the back of the first car. I wanted him to go in our car, so I could see what happens next. I wanted to know what the cop does to book someone in. But no, so pooh. The cops were tricky. They said, ‘should we get your stuff for you out of your car?’ And the guy’s like, ‘yeah, thanks’. Which let the cops go in and get all his stuff and find his drugs. Then they asked him, ‘Can we call someone to come pick up your car?’ And that’s when we find out it was from a local car dealer. This guy was test driving it.”