Down and Dirty (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 9) Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Also by A.W. Hartoin

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Down and Dirty

  by A.W. Hartoin

  Copyright 2018 A.W. Hartoin

  Smashwords Edition

  “This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Also By A.W. Hartoin

  Historical Thriller

  The Paris Package

  Young Adult fantasy

  Flare-up (Away From Whipplethorn Short)

  A Fairy's Guide To Disaster (Away From Whipplethorn Book One)

  Fierce Creatures (Away From Whipplethorn Book Two)

  A Monster’s Paradise (Away From Whipplethorn Book Three)

  A Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four)

  To the Eternal (Away From Whipplethorn Book Five)

  Mercy Watts Mysteries

  Novels

  A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book One)

  Diver Down (A Mercy Watts Mystery Book Two)

  Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries BookThree)

  Drop Dead Red (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Four)

  In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Five)

  The Wife of Riley (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Six)

  My Bad Grandad (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Seven)

  Brain Trust (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Eight)

  Short stories

  Coke with a Twist

  Touch and Go

  Nowhere Fast

  Dry Spell

  A Sin and a Shame

  Paranormal

  It Started with a Whisper (Sons of Witches)

  For Christine, who brightened up my cloudy skies in Germany.

  Chapter One

  MY LIFE AS a nurse had two settings, holy crap and snooze. It was late October and I’d been on the snooze setting for nearly two months. That’s a long time for someone like me. I don’t do quiet, as a general rule, so you’d think I’d appreciate a steady diet of flu shots and sports physicals, but I didn’t. I’m kind of an idiot that way.

  And because I lack even a modicum of sense, I sat slumped over in the Columbia Clinic’s break room, finishing a bland turkey sandwich and wishing for a little holy crap. Not a lot. Just a little. A mysterious rash or a sudden onset of labor wouldn’t have gone amiss, but that’s not how my life works. It was go big or go home and I definitely wasn’t going home.

  Then, like she sensed my boredom, Shawna the nurse practitioner stuck her head into the break room and said, “Done? Someone special needs to see you.”

  I glared at her and crumbled my brown paper bag super slow because when Shawna says “someone special” she doesn’t mean the Pope wants to give me his blessing. Channing Tatum didn’t want to try out his new strip routine for little old me and I sure wasn’t being awarded Nurse of the Year. “Someone special” meant someone bad because I’m Mercy Watts and that’s how I roll.

  “Mercy?” she said.

  “I heard you.”

  She walked in, poured a cup of coffee, and gave me the once over, frowning slightly. I don’t know what the problem was, since for once I was stain-free and I even had on makeup, if Blistex and a smudge of mascara counts.

  “That’s not going to work,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Do you have some stuff?”

  I screwed the top on my Thermos and wished it had been filled with hot chocolate instead of herbal tea. I was going to need it. “What kind of stuff?”

  “Stuff to make you look like her.”

  I groaned. Her was Marilyn Monroe and I hardly needed stuff to look like the long dead starlet. I was a dead ringer.

  “And why, pray tell, do I need to look like her?” I asked.

  Shawna sipped her coffee and avoided eye contact.

  “If it’s Mr. Cadell, you can forget it. I wouldn’t blow my nose for that old buzzard.”

  She chuckled. “No, not him. He’s impervious to pretty and everything else that’s possibly pleasant.”

  “I don’t have him today?”

  “He’s your two o’clock.”

  Dammit.

  “So, you found another surly diabetic amputee to torture me?”

  “Not today.”

  I crossed my arms.

  “This is a gimme, I swear,” said Shawna.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “It’s a slow pitch. Put on a little lip gloss and you’re golden.”

  “If this patient is so easy, why don’t you take him? I assume it’s a him,” I said.

  Shawna drained her cup and eyed the receptionist’s birthday cake on the counter. “Because I’m a mom of four and need to lose twenty pounds and you’re…you.”

  Shawna didn’t need to lose twenty pounds and if her kids and husband would stop driving her halfway to crazy town, she’d look a good five years younger, maybe more.

  “I say you take him,” I said. “If I’ve got Mr. Cadell at two, I need to save my strength.”

  “Alright. Fine. You were requested.”

  “By?”

  “Joanna Smart.”

  I’d seen Joanna a few times. Nothing major. Certainly nothing memorable. A flu shot here, a throat swab there.

  “Joanna wants me?”

  “For her son, Patrick.”

  Now it was coming together. Shawna was pimping me out so to speak.

  “What am I supposed to do? Bat my eyelashes so he’ll get his sports physical?” I know that sounds stupid, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

  “There’s something going on and neither Joanna or I can get a word out of him.”

  Steve the receptionist ambled in. “Patrick Smart’s waiting.”

  “From what I remember, Patrick couldn’t have cared less when I gave him his meningococcal booster last year. What makes you think I’ll have any influence?” I asked.

  “Because you’re sex in scrubs,” said Steve.

  “Steve!” Shawna blushed.

  “You think she doesn’t know.” He grinned at me. “If I wasn’t playing for the other team, I’d be deeply in love. I kinda am anyway.”

  I went over and hugged him. “You’re my favorite.”

  “Because I don’t try to feel you up?”

  “That helps.”

  “Alright you two. Steve, check and see if senior services has been successful in loading up Mr. Cadell. Mercy, go
work your magic and charm the truth out of Patrick.”

  Steve grumbled his way out of the break room and I asked, “What am I looking for? Depression? Drug use?”

  “Joanna says he’s surly, skipping school, and spending inordinate amounts of time in the bathroom.”

  “He’s a teenage boy.”

  “She thought she heard him crying in there a couple of times.”

  “Broke up with a girlfriend?”

  “Joanna says no. Girlfriend is Sara and she’s over all the time. They searched his room and found no evidence of drugs.”

  I wrinkled my nose. My dad had searched my room more than once and I wasn’t a fan. “No wonder he won’t talk to them.”

  “You’ll understand when you have kids.”

  “People say that about everything. You’ll understand when… My mom’s been saying I’ll like raw onions when I’m an adult. Hell, she still says that. Hello, I’m an adult and I hate raw onions.”

  “Kids change everything.”

  “I hope not.”

  “It’s inevitable.”

  “Swell,” I said. “What else ya got?”

  Shawna got more coffee and shrugged. “That’s it. Joanna’s worried. She has a feeling.”

  Now that I understood. I’d been known to have a few feelings and I was never wrong when I felt something wasn’t right.

  “Okay. Fine. I’ll slap on some gloss and see what I can do.”

  “Maybe…you know, fluff the hair, put on some mascara and blush.”

  “The whole shebang.”

  “You’re going to need it. Patrick is…well…sixteen and he’s feeling it,” said Shawna.

  “Awesome.”

  “I have every faith.”

  “Glad somebody does.” I got my purse out of my locker and the whole shebang wasn’t happening. Since the clinic reopened after the flood during the summer and my exploits in August—catching ex-cop serial killer, Scott Frame, and getting him killed in my parents’ house—the Columbia Clinic had been all over the news as my workplace. Business was better than ever, if boring, and makeup wasn’t a priority. I had a compact, Burt’s Bees tinted gloss, and a stick of deodorant. The last one had gotten the most use.

  I slathered on the gloss and used a dab to give my cheeks some color. My hair wasn’t happy about being yanked out of its ponytail and I wasn’t completely sure I should leave it down. I’d gotten a rather unfortunate haircut on the fly from my then bodyguard, Fats Licata, and my hair was growing out in the weirdest way possible, getting curly in spots and straight in others. It wasn’t at all the full Marilyn that Shawna was looking for, but what are you going to do.

  When I walked into Room 3, Patrick wasn’t sitting on the exam table. He sat jammed into the corner on the rolling chair that usually sat at the computer. His arms were tightly folded and his jaw clenched. It can never be easy. Absolutely never.

  “Hi. I’m Mercy and I’ll be your nurse today.”

  “Nice get up.”

  “Get up?”

  “Your face.”

  I yawned. “It’s my face. Nothing to be done.”

  “My girlfriend says you had surgery to look like that.”

  “Does she?”

  “Yeah. Pretty stupid. Marilyn Monroe was a twat.”

  Nice.

  “I wouldn’t know. Never met her.”

  “All that makeup sucks. You should go natural like my girlfriend. She’s really hot. You’re just sad.”

  Breathe. No smacking.

  “And you’re kinda fat. You should go on a diet.”

  Maybe a little smack.

  “You think I’m lame. Got it.” I leaned on the door and crossed my arms. “What do you want to do?”

  “About what? Your face?” Patrick snickered and I rolled my eyes.

  “What are you going to do about you?” I asked.

  The malicious joy left his face in an instant. “Nothing. I’m okay.”

  “If you’re okay then you can stop being surly, skipping school, and crying in the bathroom.”

  Patrick’s shoulders went up to his ears. “What the fuck? I don’t cry in the bathroom.”

  “Because you’re okay,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  I pulled the gloss out of my scrub pocket and put on another layer. “So we’re all good here. Your mom won’t be back with you next week or the week after that. I’ve met Joanna. She does seem like the type that gives up easily.”

  He stared at the floor and shifted in his seat like it was suddenly covered with red ants. “Why can’t people leave me alone?”

  “I get paid to bother you. And after this, I get to bother an old man with diabetes. He’s in danger of getting another foot chopped off because he won’t stop eating Twinkies.”

  “Gross.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Patrick met my eyes and defiantly said, “I want to go home.”

  I stepped aside. “Fine with me. See you next week.”

  “I’m not coming back.”

  “Are you self-sufficient?” I asked.

  Patrick scowled at me.

  “Then you’re coming back. What’s your co-pay?”

  “Co-pay?”

  I smiled. Ah the young and financially ignorant. “The amount your parents are paying for each visit.”

  “I don’t give a crap.”

  “In my experience, dad’s care. Mom’s not so much. Joanna will want to fix you no matter the cost. Your dad probably yells about turning off lights and tries to put the thermostat down to sixty-three in the dead of winter.”

  Patrick was back to staring at the floor. “I don’t want to come back.”

  “Got it.”

  “So…did you get surgery?” he asked, peeking up at me.

  “Nope. I was born this way. I look like my mom.”

  He straightened up and relaxed a tiny bit. “That’s weird.”

  “I say that about my life all the time,” I said.

  “At least you’re hot.”

  I went over and perched on the exam table. Somebody might as well sit on it. “My current stalker thinks so.”

  “You have stalkers?” More relaxing. Good.

  “Just one at the moment.”

  His arms unclenched and he said, “Can’t you have him arrested?”

  “He’s new and hasn’t actually done anything too crazy yet,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “Sending me dead animals in the mail, threatening to kidnap me, or breaking into my apartment building.”

  “That’s fucked. Did that stuff happen before you were on the news?”

  “A few times. My good intentions often have bad consequences,” I said.

  He went back to staring at the floor. “Yeah.”

  “Did you have good intentions?”

  “My mom won’t think so.”

  “It doesn’t matter what she thinks, it matters what you intended. Did you have good intentions?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And bad consequences?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  I shifted on the table and the paper crinkled and ripped, making me think that Patrick’s weight loss idea wasn’t totally off the mark. “I could start guessing, but I’ve got to go be berated and likely have a Twinkie shoved up my nose so let’s have it.”

  “Are you going to tell my mom?” asked Patrick.

  “Yes.”

  Patrick jumped to his feet. “Holy crap. You could’ve lied.”

  I laid back on the table with its raised back and put my arms behind my head. “Because you enjoy being lied to.”

  “She’s going to freak.”

  “It’s not as bad as she imagines,” I said.

  Patrick reached for the door knob, but stopped. “How do you know?”

  “Joanna’s a mom. She’s imagining the worst. She thinks you’re hurting yourself or not going to college.”

  “That’s stupid. I’m totally going to college,” he said.
r />   “Hurting yourself?”

  “Hell no.”

  “But something’s hurting?”

  “Yeah.”

  Before I could ask another question there was yelling outside the exam room. Must’ve been in the waiting room because I couldn’t quite make it out.

  “That’s probably my diabetic,” I said.

  “Is he a total asshat?”

  “Big time and he is hurting himself.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Glad to hear it. What’s going on, Patrick?”

  The kid put his head so far down into his chest I could barely hear him. In short, Patrick Smart had an STD. If I had to guess a screaming case of chlamydia. He was crying in the bathroom because his penis was on fire when he peed and there was something coming out that was definitely not pee. To make things worse, he was in love with the one and only girl he’d had sex with, Sara, and she’d given it to him. In Patrick’s hormone-laden brain, the only thing worse than telling his mom that he had an STD was telling Sara that she gave it to him. I could see his point.

  “You have to tell her. She needs treatment,” I said.

  “Maybe it will go away.”

  “It’s not going away. It’s—” More screaming erupted from the waiting room and this time I could identify a woman’s voice. Something about bastards and appointments. I wasn’t taking her. I didn’t care who she was. “Patrick, it’s not something that runs its course and disappears.”

  “It might.”

  “It won’t.”

  Patrick snuffled and I gave him a tissue. “I’ll tell her if you want me to.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure, but you’ll have to talk to her eventually.”

  “She’ll break up with me. She’ll think I gave it to her,” said Patrick.

  Another good point.

  “We’ll work on the timeline. I’m sure she has symptoms. She’ll realize the truth and we’ll find out who gave it to her. He’s probably infecting half your high school.”

  He cringed. “You think?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “It’s Barrett Smith. He’s a total douche. Sara went out with him for six months before me.”

  “Who’s he dating now?” I asked.

  “Like you said, half the school.”