Senseless Read Free

her watch, cursed herself for having dozed and then glanced toward the one-story house across the street. A ‘72 red Porsche was now parked in the driveway, signaling her guy had arrived home.
    “Way to go, Eva,” she muttered. “Sleep through the job.”
    Eva tucked her long hair under a FLORIST ball cap, grabbed the bouquet of daisies and a clipboard and jogged toward the front door of the one-level rancher. She rang the bell, shoving aside a quiver of worry. An overhead bulb spit out a weak halo of light that ringed the cracked brick porch steps and a ragged welcome mat. Not a lot of light but enough to see her way quickly back down the stairs.
    She’d been a part-time process server for about three months. The work fit well around her job as a waitress/bartender at King’s pub and her other gig as a night attendant at a homeless shelter. Normally, she didn’t squeeze in a delivery between a shift at the pub and an overnight at the shelter, but her boss, Luke Fraser at LTF Processing, had promised her extra cash for this delivery tonight. The additional income had been too sweet to pass up.
    Luke had described the job as a piece of cake. Piece of cake. Luke never paid extra for easy jobs, and toss in that this was a divorce court summons for a guy nicknamed Bigfoot, she’d decided to play it safe and go with her florist delivery ruse. Eva adjusted her cap and rang the bell a second time. The faint scent of garbage rose from the daisies retrieved from the Dumpster behind a florist shop down the alley from King’s. All she needed was a signature.
    She rang the bell a third time.
    Eva straightened her slim build to her full five feet one. Faded jeans hung on her slim hips and an oversized black hoodie swallowed her narrow shoulders and flat chest. As her mother used to say, she weighed one hundred pounds “soaking wet.” The clothes combined with her small stature had most guessing she was a high school kid, not a woman in her late twenties. She hoped this guy pegged her for a kid because people generally underestimated kids.
    Footsteps sounded behind the front door. Her heart kicked up a notch, but her chin stayed level and her stance relaxed. Just a signature. Piece of cake. Just serve him and then get the hell out of Dodge.
    The door snapped open to one of the tallest men she’d ever met. The guy stood at least six foot six and had to have weighed three-hundred-plus pounds. A stained wife-beater T-shirt stretched across a wide chest and three days’ growth of beard covered a lantern jaw. Bigfoot.
    Behind him a table lamp lit a messy room furnished with a worn couch and a flat-panel sixty-four-inch television airing a game show.
    “I have a delivery for Bruce Radford.”
    He snorted. “I don’t know what the hell you are selling, kid, but I don’t want it.” His deep voice, raspy from cigarettes, telegraphed annoyance.
    “I’m not selling. I’m delivering.” Extra attitude in the voice hid the nerves flexing in her belly. “Are you Bruce Radford?”
    Radford moved to close the door. “Nobody here ordered any fucking flowers. ”
    She shrugged, still careful to keep her expression neutral. “Like I said, I ain’t selling anything, mister. Just delivering flowers. You Bruce Radford or not?”
    Bloodshot eyes narrowed.
    “If you’re not, just say so. I’m too tried to play games. I’ll tell the boss you refused the flowers.” She turned to leave.
    “Who sent them?” He was more careful than she’d expected.
    Eva paused and glanced at the clipboard, pretending to read. “Some woman named Wanda.”
    “I don’t know a Wanda.”
    “She’s some hot chick that came into the shop at closing time. Red dress. Blond hair.”
    The suspicion darkening his eyes faded a fraction. “Blond?”
    “Yeah. And big boobs.”
    A hint of a smile tugged his full lips. He didn’t know who the hell Wanda was but blond and big boobs suited him just fine. “I’ll take ‘em.”
    “So you are Bruce Radford?”