Game Over! (Parker & Knight Book 3) Read Free

the new uniform top. I expect they’ll be delivered sometime this week.”
    “Really?”
    “Absolutely, we’ll also begin selling them at the bar. As I explained to my husband, the name Taggart’s means something around here, and I intend to market it fully.”
    “These new shirts will be for everyone, even the waitresses?” Heather asked.
    “Yes, does that please you?”
    “Yes, and thank you,”
    Rachel smiled, as if at a private joke.
    “It’s the least I can do.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Rachel waved the question away.
    “Nevermind, and please pass the word along to the other waitresses.”
    “I will, is there anything else?”
    “No, oh, but you are working until closing, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good, now please start your shift,” Rachel said, and again Heather saw the private smile.
    As she opened the door to leave the office, Tim Hearn appeared, his eyes went directly to Heather’s cleavage.
    “Oh, how I am going to miss these uniforms.”
    “Hello Mr. Hearn,”
    “Heather, please, call me Tim,”
    “All right, but if you’ll excuse me I have to begin work.”
    “Right, I’ll see you around,”
    Heather squeezed past Hearn and went to her locker, where she grabbed an order book and her work apron. As she walked out into the bar and began taking orders from a table of six, she remembered Rachel’s wry little smile, and for some reason, it gnawed at her.
    ***
    H earn shut the door and sighed.
    “I cannot believe that girl is wasting herself on that loser ex-husband of yours.”
    “Oh don’t worry, that will be ending soon,”
    “How do you know?”
    Rachel smiled.
    “Because I have a plan, and when I’m through she’ll want nothing to do with him.”
    Hearn studied her for a moment.
    “Why are you trying to break them up? You still want him don’t you?”
    “We’ve been married for less than a year and I know that you’ve already strayed several times, so don’t preach to me. We both know that we’re not good at monogamy.”
    “Parker may sleep with you, but he’ll never take you back.”
    “I know that, and I’m very happy being your wife, I just can’t stand seeing him with that girl.”
    Hearn walked over and sat on the edge of the desk.
    “This plan of yours will really break them up?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then let me help you with it,”
    “Why?”
    “Well, the poor girl will need someone to console her, won’t she?”
    “Yes she will, and if it’s you, Rick will be less inclined to ever take her back, so yes, you can help.”
    “So, when does this plan of yours begin?”
    Rachel stood and placed her arms around Hearn’s neck.
    “I’ve already planted the first seed.”
    ***
    N ico ran a hand through his hair as he looked at himself in the mirror. The man that looked back was barely recognizable.
    His long silken hair was dull and half its normal length, having only eight months to grow back after the operation to remove the .32 slug that had penetrated his skull. He was skinnier than he’d been in years and looked as if he aged a decade, but at least he was alive.
    He had no memory of the shooting, and couldn’t believe that he had nearly been turned into worm food by a ninety-nine-year-old man. He scowled, while thinking that if the old bastard hadn’t died of a heart attack that he would have killed him.
    A lot had changed during the eight months he was in the coma. One of his girlfriends had moved away, taking his daughter with her, and he had no idea where she had gone. The mother of his other daughter had taken up with the man who owned the bodega in her neighborhood, a huge man who was an ex-wrestler. She was six months pregnant with the man’s child and said he treated her better than Nico ever had.
    Learning of the death of his son’s mother shook him. Of the three women he had impregnated, she was the only one he ever had feelings for. She had overdosed on heroin, and his son was now in foster care.
    It seemed to Nico as if the whole world had