Trudy, Madly, Deeply (Working Stiffs Mystery Series) by Wendy Delaney Page A

This time I had no problem with waiting.
    By nine-thirty I had a little problem. Not only was Heather on the ferry, her blue Prius was parked next to the stairway leading up to the passenger deck where most all the other ferry riders were enjoying the view, and more importantly, had access to a bathroom. Most everyone but Heather and me.
    Now, I’m all for avoiding confrontation with certain females from my past whenever possible, but I needed to pee and that trumped any amount of stink eye Heather could hurl my way.
    Just as I reached for my door handle, I saw Heather climb out of her car. From the swipe she’d just made at her cheek, it looked like she had been crying. Because of Steve? I didn’t want to know.
    Okay, I was dying to know, but after twenty years of being snubbed by Heather Beckett, I knew I was the last person on Earth that she’d pour her heart out to.
    I watched her head up the stairs, no doubt to repair her perennially flawless face in the ladies room, exactly where I should have gone the second I drove onto the ferry and switched off my car’s ignition. I certainly couldn’t go now, not with Heather in there. Damn.
    Ten minutes later, she returned to her car grasping her cell phone. Whoever she was speaking to was getting an earful.
    I rolled down my driver’s side window. Not that I make a habit of eavesdropping on private conversations, but since it was Heather, good manners seemed optional.
    “I don’t care!” she yelled, gripping the phone as if it were a hand grenade she wanted to launch at someone. “You have to do this.”
    Do what?
    I held my breath waiting for an answer, but the only response I heard was the slam of her car door.
    I’d wager that Heather had just been told no . Obviously wasn’t happy about it, either, which didn’t break my heart one little bit, especially if that no had come from Steve. Really, did she expect him to drop everything—including the murder investigation that he should be working on—and join her in Seattle for some sort of rendezvous?
    Even Heather’s allure couldn’t be that irresistible. Could it?
    I was asking myself the same thing twelve minutes later, while I watched Heather drive down the ferry ramp. Not that I cared what she and Steve did.
    Once she was out of my sight, I turned the key and the Jag rumbled to life. “I don’t care.” Because it didn’t affect me in the slightest.
    Liar.
    “It doesn’t matter,” I said, easing down the ramp. No more than it had mattered seventeen years ago.
    The SUV in front of me slowed to a stop behind a string of cars at a red light to turn left onto 1 st Avenue South. I merged into the right lane after I made the turn and saw a blue Prius five cars ahead of me.
    According to the driving directions to Dr. Roland’s office that I’d printed, I was supposed to turn right on South Jackson. The Prius went straight through that intersection toward the heart of the city, where my grandmother used to take me shopping each August before school started. And beyond Nordstrom and the upscale shops of Westlake Park stood countless hotels that rented by the hour.
    My grip tightened on the steering wheel. Should I turn or go straight?
    Turn and act like a mature adult who had a job to do or run the light that had just turned yellow and find out what Heather was doing in Seattle?
    The job could wait a few minutes.
    I hit the gas. “Please be going shopping.”
    Heather turned right on Yesler, veering east from the downtown shopping district and my heart sank.
    I let a yellow taxi cut in front of me to add some distance between me and the Prius, then made the right turn onto Yesler.
    As I followed Heather onto Broadway she wove her way past Swedish Hospital and several towering medical buildings, finally turning onto East Madison—not an area of town I was familiar with.
    Wherever Heather was heading, my bladder needed her to get there. Quickly.
    After a couple of blocks she turned onto a tree-lined side