Excerpt of Whiskey Rebellion by Liliana Hart

Prologue

My life was a disaster.

I sat in my car with a white-knuckled grip on the steering
wheel and watched the rain pound against the windshield. I
was soaked to the skin, my skirt was ripped, and blood
seeped from both knees. There were scratches on my arms and
neck, and my face was blotchy and red from crying. Along
with the external wounds, I’d lost a good deal of my
sensibilities, most of my faith in mankind, and all of my
underwear somewhere between a graveyard and a church parking
lot.

I’ll explain later. It’s been a hell of a day.

My name is Addison Holmes, no relation to Sherlock or Katie,
and if God has any mercy, he’ll strike me with lightning and
end it all. I’ve had a job at the McClean Detective Agency
for exactly six days. It’s been the longest six days of my
life, and I’ll be lucky if I live to see another six.
Unspeakable things, things you’d never imagine have happened
to me in six days.

Now I faced the onerous task of telling Kate McClean, my
best friend and owner of the McClean Detective Agency, how
I’d botched a simple surveillance job and found a dead body.
Another dead body.

I should have kept my job as a stripper.

Chapter One

Saturday, Seven Days Earlier

I’ve made a lot of bad decisions in thirty years of living.
Like when I was eight and I decided to run away from home
with nothing more than the clothes on my back, peanut butter
crackers and my pink Schwinn bicycle with a flat front tire.
And the time when I was sixteen and decided it was a good
idea to lose my virginity at an outdoor Metallica concert.
And then there was the time I was nineteen and decided I
could make it to Atlanta on a quarter tank of gas if I kept
the air conditioner off.

There are other examples, but I won’t bore you with the
details.

Obviously my judgment has gotten worse as I’ve grown older,
because those bad decisions are nothing compared to the one
I was about to make.

“Hey, Queen of Denial, you’re up.”

I gave the bouncer guarding the stage entrance my haughtiest
glare, sucked in my corseted stomach, tossed my head so the
black wig I wore shifted uncomfortably on top of my scalp
and flicked my cat-o-nine tails hard enough to leave a welt
on my thigh. It was all in the attitude, and if I had
anything to do with it, The Foxy Lady would never be the
same after Addison Holmes made her debut.

The music overwhelmed my senses, and the bass pumped through
my veins in time with the beat of my heart. The lights stung
my eyes with their intensity, and I slunk across the stage
Marlene Dietrich style in hopes that I wouldn’t fall on my
face. Marlene’s the epitome of sexy in my mind, which should
tell you a little something about me.

I’d run into a little problem lately, and let’s just say
that anyone who’s ever said money can’t buy happiness has
obviously never had the need for money. My apartment had a
date with a wrecking ball in sixty days, and there was this
sweet little house in town I wanted to buy, but thus far the
funds to buy it hadn’t magically appeared in my bank
account. I could probably make a respectable down payment in
three or four years, but I had payments on a 350Z Roadster
that were killing me, yoga classes, credit cards, a new
satellite dish that fell through my roof last week, an
underwear of the month club membership to pay for and
wedding bills that were long past overdue. My bank account
was stretched a little thin at the moment.

None of those things would be a big deal if I was making big
executive dollars at some company where I had to wear
pantyhose everyday. But I teach ninth grade world history at
James Madison High School in Whiskey Bayou, Georgia, which
means I make slightly more than those guys who sit in the
toll booths and look at porn all day, and slightly less than
the road crew guys who stand on the side of the highway in
the orange vests and wave flags at oncoming traffic.

Since I’d rather have a bikini wax immediately followed by a
salt scrub than have to move home with my mother, I’d
declared myself officially desperate. And desperation leads
to all kinds of things that will haunt a person come
Judgment Day—like stripping to my skivvies in front of men
who are almost as desperate as I am.

The beat of the music coursed through my body as I twirled
and gyrated. The lights baked my skin and sweat poured down
my face from their heat. Something tickled my cheek. I
caught a glimpse of black out of the corner of my eye and
realized a false eyelash one of the working girls had stuck
on me earlier sat like a third eyebrow on my glistening
skin.