The Trouble With Digging Too Deep

Read the Excerpt

Chapter One

Drill Bits

Whoever said you can’t have it all was right, but sometimes you’re lucky enough to get damn close.

I have a job that I love, running my own accounting practice in downtown Tumbleweed, Texas—Debra Ott, CPA. Most people call me Deb, but my fellow number nerds call me “Debit,” as in debit and credit. I have a wonderful daughter, Hayleigh, who married an equally wonderful young man last year. The two recently purchased a cute starter home in the T-weed suburbs last year. Maybe I’ll be a grandmother soon! I also have an affectionate-when-he-feels-like-it orange tabby named Buddha because of his ample pussycat paunch. And last, but certainly not least, I have a successful husband with a thriving dental practice. Like any marriage, ours has experienced its shares of ups and downs. But lately, things seemed to be on an upswing and Allen had been treating me like a queen. I figured I’d reciprocate this morning by surprising him at his office with his favorite dark roast coffee from the Cowboy Coffee Shop.

I stepped into the coffee shop and took my place in line. The place bustled, as always. The steamer sputtered, patrons chatted, spoons and forks clinked. The enticing aroma of roasting beans filled the air, and I took a deep breath to drink it in. Norman, the surly barista, slung drinks with a practiced efficiency and perpetual frown. The guy had all the charm of a mafia mob boss, which, if rumor was right, he’d actually been in a former life. Norman was stocky with salt-and-pepper hair and, despite being in his sixties, wore a teenager’s wardrobe of T-shirts printed with sarcastic phrases. Today’s read No hablo stupid.

Mikenna, the thirtyish manager of the coffee shop, was the yin to Norman’s yang. She had an energetic perkiness that matched the coffee she percolated, greeting everyone with a smile and a “good morning!” Her golden blonde ponytail bounced as she flounced around behind the counter, serving the drinks, taking payments, making change, spreading caffeine and cheer.

As the mochas and lattes left the counter, the line slowly progressed. I inched my way past the pictures of classic cowboys that hung on the wall. John Wayne. Johnny Cash. Gene Autry. Will Rogers. Directly in front of me stood Reverend Roach, a skinny scarecrow of a man with dark hair. While I tried to save the Tumbleweed residents on their taxes, he tried to save their souls. He’d been after mine for years. Luckily for me, he was tied up with another soul at the moment, that of our town’s mayor.

Mayor Waylon Spurr was a direct descendant of Tumbleweed’s founder, who had run a mercantile and rented the rooms above it—along with the flesh of beautiful young women. Mayor Spurr insisted there was no truth to the spurious stories about his ancestor being a pimp, but the tales passed down from earlier generations said otherwise. The mayor’s cheap toupee sat on his head, looking like something that had been snaked out of a drain in the shower of a men’s locker room. I wasn’t sure what was worse, the fake hair sitting atop his head or the fuzzy, mold-like hair growing out of his ears and his caterpillar eyebrows.

When the Mayor stepped up to the counter, Reverend Roach turned to see who was behind him. Fortunately, a colleague turned away from the counter with her coffee and caught my eye before he could tell me, for the millionth time, that he’d missed seeing me in church last Sunday. Maybe if your sermons didn’t wander aimlessly for what felt like forty years. If nothing else, he made his congregants sympathize for the Israelites.

“Deb!” called Kathleen, who worked as manager at the local bank. “How’ve you been?”

“Insanely busy,” I said. “Thank goodness April fifteenth is behind us now.” We’d passed the tax deadline last week. I’d spent the entire subsequent weekend in bed, catching up on sleep and my favorite sitcoms.

“The Stocktons applied for a big loan from the bank,” she said. “Half a million, I believe. Said they’re gonna expand the Pawn and Pistols. Are you performing the audit?”

“I am. They want to move quick, too, but don’t you worry. I’ll make sure their financials are in good order.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t kill yourself working late. The audit is just a formality required by the underwriters. I can’t imagine the Pawn and Pistols will be turned down. That place has been in business since the dinosaurs died out here.”

The Permian Basin was an enormous oil field thanks to the dead dinosaurs who eventually transformed from overgrown geckos into fossil fuels. It was odd to think that our cars ran on tyrannosaurus juice. But it was true that the pawn shop had been in business forever. Warren Stockton’s grandfather had established the store in the early 1900’s and passed it on to his offspring when he died. Warren’s father had run the place for years before turning it over to his son.

With a “let’s do lunch soon,” Kathleen headed on her way.

Reverend Roach finished placing his order and, finally, it was my turn at the counter. I ordered the dark roast for Allen, and got myself my usual skinny vanilla latte with coconut milk. Yum! I handed Mikenna some cash for the coffee and dropped a couple of dollars plus my change in the tip jar. “I’m taking the coffee to go. Mind putting them in a carrier?”

“No problem.” Mikenna slid the two cups into a sturdy carboard carrier to make them easier for me to transport, and held them out to me.

I took the drinks and thanked the young woman. “Have a good day, Mikenna. You, too, Norman.”

He merely grumbled in reply, not bothering to turn around from the espresso machine. I fought a chuckle. Thank goodness my husband was pleasant to be around. In fact, he’d been especially so recently. I’m not sure what had gotten into him, but he had a fresh spring in his step. Must be those new vitamins I’d bought for him. They were designed especially for men over fifty.

Carrier in hand, I left Cowboy Coffee. The late spring day was bright but bearably warm. Another month and the sun would beat down on us relentlessly, punishing us for daring to live in the remote, unforgivable desert of west Texas. But, despite the heat and dust storms, the place had a certain charm.

I headed past the pawn shop, the theater, and the police station, before turning down a side street. I strode over to the next block. My husband’s dental office was on the first floor of a two-story medical building, sandwiched between an ophthalmologist and a pediatrician. A man held the main door open for me, and I stepped into the lobby. I headed down the hall, using my elbow to push the lever on the dental office door.

Inside, three patients thumbed through magazines as they waited to be called to the back for their appointments. Lynette, my husband’s receptionist, smiled when she saw me come in. “Hey there, Deb.”

I raised the cup carrier. “Thought I’d surprise Allen.”

She angled her head to indicate the hallway behind her. “He’s in room three doing a consult on veneers.”

I headed back to room three. The door was closed. I raised my hand to knock—patient privacy and all that—when I heard strange sounds coming from the other side of the door. There was an ooh, an ahh, a grunt, another grunt, and then my husband’s voice crying, “I’m coming!” Why the man felt like he had to announce every orgasm I’ll never know.

I opened the door, patient privacy be damned. My husband and a redhead were going at it in the reclining chair. Allen’s back was to me, his pants bunched around his knees, the hem of his white lab coat flapping up and down to reveal his bare ass as he thrust his pelvis. Like a good patient, the woman beneath him had her mouth wide open to emit an aaaah. She gasped in pleasure. My husband was drilling her all right, but he was filling the wrong cavity.

The two had been too involved in their lovemaking to hear me come in, and maintained their momentum as I walked over to the chair, turned the bright spotlight on them, and called out, “Surprise!”

Allen yelped and twisted to look behind him, but there was no room on the narrow chair. He rolled off the other side, inadvertently slamming his elbow into the table of sterilized instruments and sending it crashing to the floor. He landed on his butt on the tile, his eyes wide. “Deb!” He scrambled to his feet and pulled up his pants. “It’s not what it looks like!”

It was bad enough he’d cheated on me, but to treat me like an idiot was more than I was willing to take. It hurt to realize that spring in my husband’s step hadn’t come from the vitamins. It had come from banging this woman. She looked familiar. I peered at her, and recognition slapped me in the face. She’s the interior decorator we’d hired to redesign our kitchen! The thought that I had trusted this woman with something as personal as my home infuriated me further. But the house I’d shared with Allen wouldn’t be my home any longer. No way could I live in a place that reminded me of him, of this disgusting scene. It was ironic that I’d just been thinking how he’d treated me like a queen. Then again, I supposed he had treated me as well as Henry VIII had treated most of his queens.

“Surprise!” I called. “I brought your favorite coffee. Enjoy!” I pulled his cup from the carrier, thumbed the lid off, and tossed the drink onto the two of them, wishing I’d walked faster on the way over. The coffee had cooled enough that they wouldn’t be scalded. Damn. At least it would leave a nice stain on his lab coat.

Leaving my husband and his mistress dripping and sputtering in my wake, I left the dental office without a backward glance and stalked back to the square.

Tookie, an older woman who ran the diner on the square, knelt in front of the chalkboard sign outside of her eatery. She wrote on the board, no doubt listing the specials and the pie of the day. Tookie’s Diner served the world’s best pies. She bought many of them from a Tumbleweed transplant named Cassie who baked freelance. Cassie worked magic with flour, vanilla, and a rolling pin. We always ordered one or two for the holidays. Birthdays, too. Tookie eyed me as I approached. “What’s put a burr in your britches, Deb?”

“Is it that obvious?” I asked, stopping and looking down at her.

She narrowed her eyes. “Your aura’s blood red. But even if I couldn’t read auras, that scowl on your face was a big clue.”

 I exhaled sharply. “I just caught my bastard of a husband with one of his patients. They were—” Fucking? Doing the nasty? Bumping uglies? Banging? Though I was fifty myself now, I’d always been taught to respect my elders. So, trying not to be crude, I went with “—in flagrante delicto.”

“Flagrante delicto?” Tookie cocked her head. “Is that the new Mexican place on the other side of the river? I heard they make a mean margarita.”

“No,” I said. “It means I caught them—”

Tookie waved a slightly-gnarled-with-age, dismissive hand. “I know what it means, hon. I was just making a joke. You look like you could use a laugh.”

“A laugh,” I agreed, “or a double-barreled shotgun.” I mimed raising a long gun in front of me and taking aim. “I’d blast my husband in the ass like he deserves.”

Tookie chuckled. “I’d like a front-row ticket to that show. That man’s been a damn fool.” She reached up a hand. “Mind helping an old lady stand up?”

I took her hand and helped her leverage herself to a stand.

On her feet now, she tucked the chalk into a pocket on her apron. “Wait here a minute. I’ve got something that will cheer you up.”

As she stepped into her diner, I glanced down at the chalkboard sign. Today’s pie special was Better Than Sex pie. I’d had it before and it was, indeed, better than any sex I’d ever had. Chocolate. Almonds. Coconuts. A trifecta for the taste buds. I hoped she was bringing me a piece.

Sure enough, Tookie returned a moment later with a huge slab of pie in a small cardboard to-go box. “On the house.”

“Thanks, Tookie.” As I took the container from her, the diamond on my engagement ring glinted in the sun. The stone was tiny, the ring cheap. It was all Allen could afford at the time, and I’d been thrilled to accept it. My wedding band had been inexpensive too, simple and plain. Allen had offered to replace the rings with a prettier, pricier set many times over the years, usually for our anniversary, but I’d always declined. I’d liked that the rings reflected who we’d been when we’d married—young, barely scraping by, crazy in love. They’d shown how far we’d come. Now, of course, we’d come to an end.

I debated what to do. Should I go home, take the day off, and have a good cry? Dull my pain with a bottle of pinot? Pile Allen’s belongings on the front lawn, douse them with lighter fluid, and start a bonfire? Tempting as these ideas were, I had work to do and I’d be damned if I let that cheating son-of-a-bitch jeopardize my business reputation.

Rather than seek immediate solace or revenge, I turned and headed to Tumbleweed Pawn & Pistol. The shop was a mom-and-pop operation, with Warren and Sharon Stockton calling the shots. The couple employed their three adult sons. The trio were named after gun brands—Remington, Winchester, and Ruger—though the first two went by the nicknames Remi and Chester for short. It goes without saying that the Stocktons were gun nuts, though here I’ve gone and said it anyway.

While oil towns like Tumbleweed experienced boom and bust cycles, the Stocktons’ business was always booming. When the economy was doing well, customers came in to buy their wares. When the economy was in the toilet, residents came in to pawn items for cash to pay their bills. In hopes of expanding the store, Warren and Sharon had applied for the bank loan. Though their business had been very profitable, they didn’t have much in the way of liquid assets. Their sons had been prolific procreators. There wasn’t much to do in Tumbleweed and, when residents got bored, they either turned to each other or on each other. Someone was always getting knocked up or knocked down. The Stocktons boasted a dozen grandchildren, each of whom they spoiled rotten. If they’d listened to my advice, they’d have put more of their earnings into their IRAs and investment accounts rather than into video game systems, Barbie Dream Houses, and annual trips to Disney World, but I couldn’t blame them for wanting to show their grandkids some love.

The store had just opened for business and no customers were yet in the shop. I passed the display of assorted used tablets and cell phones. Older generation iPads and iPhones. A couple of Android devices. All were plugged into a long power strip so that they’d be fully charged if a customer wanted to check out their features. I continued on past the display of power tools and luggage until I reached the checkout desk.

Sharon stood behind the counter, putting the day’s start-up cash in the till. Her wavy hair was dyed a shiny black, much too dark to be natural at her age, but it was nonetheless attractive. Heck, I dyed my hair, too. She wore light makeup in neutral shades on her heart-shaped face, and a pair of readers perched halfway down her nose.

Sharon smiled when she saw me come inside. “Hello, Debbie. Here about the audit?”

“No,” I said, “though it’s the first thing on my to-do list for today.” I stepped up to the counter, set my pie down, and tugged the rings off my finger. I weighed twenty-five pounds more than I had when Allen and I had married all those years ago, and the rings fit much tighter now. Once I managed to pull the rings off, I placed them on the counter. “How much can I get for these rings? I’m not looking for a loan. I want to sell them outright.”

“Uh-oh.” Sharon picked up the engagement ring and eyed me through the hole. “Trouble in paradise?”