First Friday: an Agatha Maguire Mystery, #1 by Eliza West

Author:Eliza West
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Women's Fiction, Female Sleuth
Publisher: Eliza West
Published: 2022-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Friday, May 1, 2015

Carla put a thin layer of rose cream on her hands and tousled her hair, appraising herself in the mirror. She wore a black, short-sleeved silk blouse with well-fitted white jeans and black heels. A single pearl necklace adorned her neck and large silver hoops hung from her ears. She turned to gain a side view and held in her stomach.

Why she had ever entered into an affair with that uptight, control-freak of an accountant she didn’t know. If only he would leave her alone now. It had been fun, in its way, certainly, but she was so over it. And he just wouldn’t stop calling and harassing her with his pleas to get back together, proclaiming his unending love for her. It was tiresome.

She turned to appraise herself from the other direction. And that frumpy, jealous wife of his, ugh. That was rather uncomfortable, running into her here and there, although Carla thought she put on a good show of not caring what the woman, or anyone else, thought of her.

Some people might call her selfish, but in truth she was just fiercely independent, and maybe a little lonely, she admitted to herself. She might have her flings, but they were never more than that. She was unaccustomed to true companionship and sometimes wondered if she were missing out on something. But she liked her freedom and equated the idea of a steady boyfriend with having to relinquish that. It simply wasn’t for her. She liked to rule the roost without having to acquiesce to anyone else’s needs.

She unscrewed the cap off a small bottle and tossed back a couple of muscle relaxants. Thank goodness for that niece of hers, she thought to herself, swallowing them down with a quick swig of water from the bathroom sink. She was glad Nina was around.

Ugh, the stress lately. Frankly, she wasn’t sure she had complete faith in Stuart’s financial accountability at this point. There hadn’t been the return yet that she believed there should be on her accounts for Blaze, and he had been evasive when she had asked to see the statements. That in itself was concerning when she thought about it, not to mention simply annoying. At any rate, she refused to borrow against the other businesses and just didn’t have the time herself to peruse all the receipts and work out all the checks and balances. That’s what she paid an accountant for, after all. But it was infuriating and embarrassing not to have paid all her regular employees what they were owed on time.

At least everyone on payroll had been taken care of so far, and she’d instructed Kevin this past week to simply pay the musicians straight from the cash register at the end of the night. She’d seen to that. But the musicians were still waiting on the first month’s payment, and there were a few other outstanding debts that really needed to be taken care of immediately. Particularly Nick, who

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.