To celebrate the impending release of Book #1 in the Riley Russell Mystery Series (less than a week away!), today I’m offering a Secrets & Lies excerpt which gives you a glimpse into Riley’s world…and how everything’s about to change. Let me know in the comments what you think.

I’d spent the week battling lawyers, real estate agents, and the family of an apparently senile ninety-two-year-old woman who, so far, was refusing to vacate the house she had sold me. If Chris Fiorelli thought he was going to ruin Half-Price Margarita Night for me, well, he didn’t know jack.

In a previous lifetime, seeing his name on my Caller ID would have set off a wave of butterflies—sometimes the good kind, other times more like nausea. Ours had been a tumultuous two-year saga, a real roller coaster ride of a relationship that had finally gone off the rails for good, as far as I was concerned, about six months ago. Whatever promises and lies he might come up with this time, I was ready to slay this latest attempt at a reconciliation with a heartfelt Drop dead.

Placing a finger in one ear to shut out the happy hour crowd, I pressed my cell phone to the other. “Yeah?”

“Riley, it’s Chris, don’t hang up.” The words tumbled out as one. “I need your help.”

“My…help?” I swallowed the expletive bubbling at the back of my throat.

It was a new low, even for him.

The toes of my boots found the rungs of the bar stool and I sat up ramrod straight. “You’re kidding, right? I mean, there’s no way in hell you could possibly think—”

“Riley, listen—”

“No, you listen. You have a problem, you can call your new girlfriend and—”

“Wait! Please. I’m at the police station. I need the number for that lawyer friend of yours. Bill…is it Harrison?”

“Bill Harrington?” There are only a couple of reasons someone would need one of New Jersey’s best criminal defense attorneys on a Friday night. “What’s going on?”

He hesitated. “It’s Victoria. She—”

I exhaled every molecule of air in my lungs. Sonofabitch.

“Oh, you know what? Screw you, Fiorelli. Just…screw you!”

A couple of women easing themselves onto the bar stools to my right stopped mid-slide to gape at the maniac yelling into her cell phone.

Oh, perfect. Heather and Chantay from Castle Home Mortgage. Is there nowhere to go in this damned town where every freaking soul in the place doesn’t know you?

I acknowledged them with a tight-lipped smile, then swiveled away before hissing into the phone, “You tell Victoria she can look it up like everyone else.”

“But Riley, Victoria’s—”

“In trouble. I get it. Harrington & Malloy. Tell her to Google it.”

You may not get that soul-satisfying bang when you hang up a cell phone in someone’s ear, but still.

I turned back to find the bartender staring at me. A slow smile crept across his handsome face, his intense blue-eyed gaze triggering a flutter that traveled straight from my navel due south.

“You okay?” he asked.

I couldn’t help but smile back. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Travis was a good bartender, and rumor had it he possessed mad skills in other areas too. I bit my lip and tried hard not to think about that as my eyes slid over the neat beard outlining his jaw to the open collar of a perfectly tailored white shirt revealing a hint of curly hair, then back to those sapphire eyes. I was saved from myself when someone across the bar called his name. He gave me a wink then turned to take the guy’s drink order.

“He’s sooo freakin’ hot.”

“I know, right? Damn. I gotta get me some of that.”

I turned toward the source of the commentary. Heather absently toyed with the ends of her long blonde hair. The cocoa-skinned Chantay stroked the inside of her lower lip with a red-lacquered fingernail. Their eyes followed Travis’s every move.

As a paralegal I’d handled quite a few real estate transactions, so I knew the two Castle reps pretty well. We were all around the same age, all single, and it wasn’t unusual for us to be at the same place closing out the work week with a cocktail or three. But the last time I’d seen them was the night Chris and I came to a rather public end. Suffice it to say the fireworks trailing in my wake left a lasting impression on those in attendance.

And as much as I hated the thought of them having overheard this latest exchange with Chris, I was more concerned they might have heard I’d bought a house and financed it through another lender. People tend to get pissy about stuff like that around here. Of course, the chances of them not finding out were slim. There are no secrets in Hamilton Township.

“Hey, Heather, Chantay. How ya doing?”

Heather gave a little wave, scarcely taking her eyes off Travis’s blue-jeaned ass.

Chantay angled toward me and leaned in with a smirk. “Well, I always say it’s not about how I’m doing, but who I’m doing.” She briefly turned a smoky eye in Travis’s direction before asking, “How about you? That phone call sounded a little…intense. Everything okay?”

Wishing I’d had the foresight to take Chris’s call outside, I answered, “Oh, yeah. Work stuff. You know.”

Her lip twitched upward and, unable to hold it, we both burst out laughing.

Heather dragged her gaze away from Travis. “Riley Russell. How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since Victoria Landon’s Saint Paddy’s Day party.”

Chantay shot her a look.

Heather backpedaled. “Uh, sorry. Didn’t mean to open a sore subject.”

Yeah, I’ll bet. “Oh, what? Chris Fiorelli?” With a dismissive shrug, I said, “Ancient history. I’m so over it.” Then, inexplicably, I blurted out, “In fact, I just bought myself a house. Closed on it today.” Shit.

Heather’s eyes widened but she maintained a tight little smile. “Really?” She returned her gaze to Travis and murmured, “Good for you.”

Chantay broke eye contact, nudged Heather, and said, “Excuse us, will you, Riley?” They sashayed off to join a couple of high-maintenance women laughing loudly at a nearby four-top.

That went well. I drained the last of margarita number one and motioned to Travis for a second.

Where the hell was Kate? At this rate, I’d be trashed before dinner.

***

Having alienated the Castle girls with my lame attempt at small talk and having no one nearby to talk to, I scanned the mostly familiar faces surrounding The Cantina’s large oval bar. Waving in my direction from the far left-hand side of the room was Frankie Fiorelli. He started making his way toward me.

A younger version of Chris, Frankie resembled his brother in so many ways. Like Chris, his hair was dark, almost black, but his wild, uneven waves always seemed in need of upkeep, unlike the two-hundred-dollar haircuts that kept Chris’s natural curls perpetually camera-ready. They shared the deep brown eyes and smooth olive skin of their Italian heritage and were roughly the same height and weight. Only his posture hinted of a guy who’d never quite measured up to his older brother, especially where their father was concerned.

At twenty-eight, Frankie remained a restless soul. As far as I knew, he’d never held a steady job outside of Capitol Collectibles, the sports memorabilia shop Chris owned. Chris had been carrying him for his entire adult life, and Frankie often wore his resentment on his sleeve. Still, Frankie Fiorelli had been a real friend to me during my stormy relationship with his brother. On countless occasions we’d talked long into the night after something or other had set off Chris’s volatile temper. We’d spent so much time together, it sometimes seemed I knew Frankie better than I did his brother.

When he reached my side, Frankie slapped his beer mug down on the bar, ignoring the small splash it created, and wrapped his arms around me. “Hey. How’ve you been?”

When he didn’t release me right away, I loosened his arms with a gentle nudge and leaned back a bit. “I’m good, Frankie. How about you?”

“Better now that you’re here,” he breathed into my face, the smell of beer overpowering. “I’ve missed seeing you.”

I finished disentangling myself. “Yeah, well, you know how it is—”

“Yeah, I do. My brother’s an idiot.”

There was no disputing that, so I changed the subject. “Not working tonight, huh?”

“Working? Didn’t you h—? Uh, no. Got the night off.”

“You been here long?”

“Mmm…maybe.” He leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “I’m celebrating.”

“Oh? What are you celebrating?”

He hesitated for a moment, looking confused, before the goofy grin returned to his face. “For one thing, you’re here, I’m here…” he slurred.

I laughed. “Okay, Frankie. Maybe time for a little break, yeah?” I caught Travis’s eye and mouthed the word water while tapping the bar in front of Frankie.

When Travis delivered the water along with my drink, Frankie’s arm shot out to grab the Margarita, sending it toppling over. The glass survived without breaking, but the resulting tequila tsunami cascaded down the bar causing more than a few dirty looks and some salty language to be delivered in our direction.

“I got it, I got it,” Travis said as he mopped up the mess. “You, my friend, might need to call it a night,” he said to Frankie. “How about I get you a cab?”

Frankie draped an arm across my shoulders and said, “My girl here will give me a ride, won’tcha, sweetheart?”

Luckily, Travis understood the look I shot him.

“It’s all good, my man. I gotcha covered,” Travis said.

Frankie began to protest, but I was distracted by a voice over my right shoulder.

“Hey.”

I slipped out from under Frankie’s arm and turned, coming face-to-face with Kate, whose typically serene green eyes were clouded by fatigue.

“Thank God you’re here. What took you so long?” I whispered hoarsely.

“Sorry. Couldn’t be avoided.” With a subtle nod in the direction of Frankie and Travis’s animated discussion, she asked, “What’s that all about?”

“Looks like Frankie’s been here all afternoon. So drunk he was hitting on me.”

Kate’s eyebrows shot up at this.

“Oh, he’s harmless. Travis is seeing about getting him a ride home,” I said.

“It’s getting to be a regular thing with him. He needs to get it together and do something with his life.”

“Yeah, he does. But it hasn’t exactly been easy for him, having Mr. Perfect for a brother.”

“You always did have a soft spot for him, didn’t you?”

“He’s been a good friend to me over the years, so, yeah,” I said. “He just needs to break away from Chris, get something of his own going, you know? Maybe I should have a talk with him.”

Kate shrugged. “Good luck with that. Trust the woman with Jake Callahan for a brother. Trying to help a guy like that is a full-time job.”

I hopped down—five-foot-two girls don’t slide gracefully off barstools—and Kate and I headed toward the dining room. I called over my shoulder, “See you around, Frankie.” He was still talking to Travis and didn’t seem to hear.

As we made our way through the crowd, I turned to Kate. “I’m starving. You?”

“Dying. Three-hour meeting with a lawyer I’m paying three hundred bucks an hour, and the jerk doesn’t even spring for sandwiches. I’m about to gnaw off my own arm.”

“Are you any closer to figuring out what you’re going to do about Jake?”

“We can discuss my crazy brother’s latest demands after I get a drink,” she said. “I swear, if I go there now, my head will explode.”

We slid into a booth with a well-worn tabletop, the dark wood carved with names and initials of people we knew and others our parents and grandparents undoubtedly knew back in the day. The Cantina had started life as a burger joint in the 1950s and underwent a metamorphosis coinciding with every new generation, from western-themed steak house to pizza parlor.

Fifteen years ago Kate’s father bought the local landmark and began serving up the best Tex-Mex food and Margaritas in the tri-state area, cementing its reputation as a favorite watering hole. When he died last Christmas, Kate walked away from the stodgy accounting firm where she had been on the partner track to carry on her father’s legacy. Convincing her brother Jake to back off contesting the will was taking a little longer.

The waitress came by with a tray containing two Margaritas, a basket of tortilla chips, and The Cantina’s signature salsa. “Travis said you ladies are in need of a drink.”

“He’s very perceptive. Just one of many reasons I keep him on the payroll. How’s your shift going, Maria?” Kate asked.

Maria responded with a crooked smile, as she set the chips and drinks on our table. “Fine, until my boss, la bruja, sat down in my section.” She pulled the pen from behind her ear. “The usual?” When we nodded, Maria shook her head and rolled her eyes, a wry grin playing across her face as she disappeared into the kitchen.

“You’ll learn to love me,” Kate called after her, laughing.

“Bruja?” I asked.

“Witch. I think it’s a term of endearment. So, other than Frankie, what else did I miss?”

I let Kate tuck into her drink before I hit her with it. “You’ll never guess who I just heard from.”

She looked up from a long draw on her margarita and said, “Kinda busy here. How ’bout you just tell me?” before going back to her drink.

I took a sip of my own, eyes still on Kate. “Chris called. From the police station.”

Kate sputtered, her eyes squinched up and tearing, as she coughed through the inhaled tequila. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Can you believe it? Why am I the first person he thinks of when he needs help?”

Kate shook her head in disbelief, dabbing at the corners of her watery eyes with a napkin. “So, what’s he doing at the police station?”

I shrugged. “Sounds like Vic-tor-i-a got herself into a bit of a bind.” I made a face as I said her name in a childish sing-song voice. “He wanted to know if I had a phone number where he could reach Bill.”

“Bill? But Bill is—”

“A criminal defense attorney. Exactly.”

Kate leaned in a little closer. “Oh, I’ve got to hear this. Out with it. I want to hear the whole conversation, word for word.”

Kate was the only one who knew the truth about my relationship with Chris. Well, most of it, anyway.

I gave her the he said-she said of my conversation with Chris, feeling rather pleased with myself for laying him out like I did.

“Un-friggin-believable! Riley, you’re my hero.” She raised her drink in a congratulatory toast, and we clinked glasses. “What do you think Little Miss Moneybags did? DUI? Floating bad checks? What?”

Before I could venture a guess, a voice from the booth across from us called out, “Hey, Riley. You seeing this?”

Kate and I turned toward the silent television high in the corner over her shoulder and muttered “Holy shit” in unison.

There was Chris’s face, plastered on the wide-screen TV, the closed captioning revealing a fear I had fought long and hard to hide, even—maybe especially—from myself.

For those who pre-ordered the ebook version of Secrets & Lies, it will be downloaded to your reading device next Wednesday, May 19, 2021. If you pre-ordered the print edition, your copy will be arriving in your mailbox shortly thereafter. If you haven’t ordered yours yet, I hope you’ll join me in welcoming Riley Russell to the world on her (our) book birthday by pre-ordering your copy today here.