Read Online Wedding Bell Blues by Ruth Moose - Free Book Online

she is on all fours in my car. “So,” he said, “if it’s not my car you’re after, you must have designs on me, then?”
    â€œNo, no,” I said again and felt my face flush. “Just looking for something.”
    â€œAnd did you find it?” he asked, leaning in so close I felt his body heat.
    â€œNot yet. Just something I thought I left in your car, or dropped when we were at the motel this morning. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
    â€œNo problem. Can I help you look?” he asked.
    â€œThanks, but no.” I straightened up. “It’s not that important.” It was, but not to him, just to me and Reba and maybe Ossie, and maybe whoever that was sprawled across the picnic table by the Interstate.
    I thanked him and waved goodbye. He stood there shaking his head, looking totally confused, as though this town and some of the people who lived here were beyond his comprehension.
    What next? Where next? The only place left where that wallet could possibly be was back where I had originally found it: Motel 3. Allison had played games with me.
    Lied like a rug. And I sure didn’t want to go back for more, but that had to be where it was. Should I go trucking over there now or put it off and maybe Allison would be a bit friendlier, forget she’d thrown a wallet at me? Cool down, calm down. Maybe she thought she was being cute—but I just didn’t think so. I thought she was hiding something bigger than a wallet.
    I decided no good would come of procrastination so I cranked Lady Bug and back we chugged to Motel 3.
    At Motel 3, Allison had parked her cleaning cart in front of the room where Reba and the mystery man had their fateful picnic. The door was open, the crime scene tape taken down. That sure was some fast “collecting evidence from a crime scene” if indeed that’s what Bruce had done.
    â€œKnock, knock,” I said as I marched right in.
    Allison had the vacuum cleaner going and a radio playing reggae music, but she turned around. “You must like this place. You keep coming back like some warped boomerang.”
    I didn’t answer.
    She turned off the vacuum, came from behind the bed. “What now?” She stood with her arms crossed across her wide and blooming chest.
    â€œThe wallet, please.” I held out my hand. “The real one this time.”
    â€œI don’t know what on earth makes you think you have to have the damn thing. There’s no money in it.” She now stood with both hands on her hips. A defiant pose if there ever was one. A pose that said, you’re going to have to knock me down and take it.
    â€œBelieve it or not, it’s not money I’m after.”
    â€œI don’t believe it. Everybody in this world is after money. The most they can get and get away with.” She gave a long, lingering sigh.
    â€œI need the pictures … the photos.” I was tired of playing games with her.
    â€œI should have buried the thing.” Allison reached down and pulled the wallet from between the mattress and box springs. “Take it if you think it’s going to do you any good. Been bad luck for me.”
    She handed it to me with a kind of good-riddance thrust.
    I knew that wallet was not between the mattress and box springs when Bruce did the room for evidence. Even if he or someone else had done a cursory job, they would have found it. Anything between the mattress and box springs was an old, old cliché of a hiding place. Anyone would look there first. Allison probably had the wallet the whole time. But why?
    This time I said, “Thank you very much,” whirled around and left as fast as I could, got out the door before she changed her mind and tried to snatch it back. Life had sure seemed to toughen up Allison. Remembering the rumors I’d heard in high school as well as fairly recent ones, she wasn’t somebody I wanted to trust. Not even with an empty