Never Happened (Harlequin Next) - Softcover

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DEBRA WEBB is the award winning, USA Today bestselling author of more than 170 novels, including reader favorites the Finley O'Sullivan series, the Colby Agency, and the Lookout Mountain Mystery series. With more than four million books sold in numerous languages and countries, Debra's love of storytelling goes back to her childhood on a farm in Alabama. Visit Debra at www.DebraWebb.com.

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"You're early, Alex." A wide grin accompanied the remark. "You know I can't let you get started just yet."

The smart-ass cop was right. Charlie Crane's body was still in the house when Alex arrived. She surveyed the scene, could have done without seeing the old guy with his head all mangled by the bullet that had passed through his skull, but there was no changing that stomach-turning fact now.

"Yeah, well, Henson," she said, shifting her gaze from the poor bastard in the easy chair, "you're late. You guys were supposed to be out of here an hour ago."

Detective Rich Henson snorted at her comeback. "The M.E. had a little fender bender, but he'll be here any minute now, and then — " he spread his arms widely to indicate the room " — the place is all yours."

As Henson spoke, his gaze slid down her Margaritaville T-shirt, pausing ever so briefly on her 36D cups, before trailing the length of her jean-clad legs. She'd gotten used to the leers ages ago. Despite being called Alex by all who knew her, she was one hundred percent female and damned proud of it.

Alexis Jackson was thirty-nine — okay, forty, but she wasn't telling anyone since she remained in staunch denial of the fact — five feet six, and one-hundred-ten pounds of well-toned muscle and hard-earned grit and determination. She wore her hair long, straight and blond — her methods for keeping it that way were a closely guarded secret. The men she dated, including the one visually eating her up right now, liked to wax on about how the color of her eyes reminded them of the sea.

Sounded great, huh? Well, the downside to being a blue-eyed blonde with a great body was that most men, and some women, mistakenly thought she was just another pretty face. But they only made that mistake once.

"Who hired you?" Henson asked, being his usual nosy self. Alex felt pretty sure he didn't really care; he just wanted to make conversation. She knew he still had a thing for her, and if she was into long-term relationships and cute guys with adrenaline-driven egos she might just give him a second chance. The fact of the matter was they had been there, done that and she'd walked away.

Besides, cops were off-limits. As were firemen, P.I.'s and paramedics. Give her a CPA anytime. At least she didn't spend all her time stroking his ego. Unfortunately, in her line of work most of the CPA types she ran into were dead. That sort of thinking led one place — to the big, looming cloud that proclaimed "dateless for twenty-three days now." Definitely not where she wanted to go. As simple as it would be to tread into deeper waters with a sweet guy like Henson, she saw the risks a mile away.

He was one of those guys who wanted something permanent. The only things in her life that were permanent were her friends and her work. And that was fine by her.

"I didn't think this guy had any family," Henson tacked on just to add credibility to his question and to prompt an answer, which he would already know. It was his job to know. Charlie Crane's death might just be a suicide, but in the state of Florida all unattended deaths had to be investigated, especially those involving trauma. "The landlord." Her gaze went back to rest on Charlie's slumped form. He had to be sixty at least. It amazed her that he didn't have any family at all. No parents, no kids, no siblings. No one. Not even any real friends as far as the landlord knew. A stir of something Alex refused to identify made her stomach feel a little tight and queasy.

Henson cocked his head and studied the stiff, then tossed her a sympathetic look. "Well, I'm glad it's you and not me. As soon as the M.E.'s finished, I'm out of here." He visibly shuddered.

She considered the spray of blood and brain matter on the paneled wall behind the body. Could have been worse. She'd certainly seen stuff more ghastly than this. "Nothing I haven't done before."

"A guy never knows what a girl's going to like." Henson flashed her another of those big ol' grins he considered charming, but she hadn't missed the hint of bitterness in his voice.

"You could always stay and watch, you might learn something more about what this girl likes," she challenged. As she suspected, the big, brave cop didn't have anything to say to that, for more reasons than the work that lay ahead of her.

She realized it sounded strange, but the fallout from the manner of death didn't really bother her. The bodies, well that was a different matter. Somehow seeing the person, or what was left of the person, made her knees go a little weak. The way they did now. She fought hard not to let Henson see her inner reaction to the corpse that hadn't been taken away yet. She had a reputation to maintain after all. Not to mention she went through this routine every time she showed up at a scene. Men just couldn't believe that women could handle seeing something this gruesome even though women were the ones who more often than not changed dirty diapers. Go figure.

Not surprisingly, a lot of people asked how she got into the business of dealing with dead things. She usually made a joke of it. Someone had to do it, right? Truth was, her first experience cleaning up after the recently deceased had come at the ripe old age of fifteen. She hadn't had a lot of choice in the matter. It was either jump in and help her mother or stand back and watch her do it alone. Alex hadn't been able to do that…her mother had needed her, but she would have cut out her tongue before she would have asked her daughter for help. That moment had fore-shadowed more than Alex's future occupation; she'd been taking care of her mother in one way or another ever since.

As with Alex's current assignment, her father hadn't chosen the tidiest way to end his pathetic existence. A slightly off-center shot to the chest where the lungs could have sucked in most of the blood would have been preferable and considerably simpler. But like everything else in her life, his suicide hadn't been simple. A single shot to the head using a 30.06 rifle created an explosion that made a mess of the crappy room in the dilapidated house they'd called home. He'd been an alcoholic who couldn't see past the hole he'd dug himself into, so he'd taken the easy way out.

Considering her line of work, Alex supposed you could say the event had made an impact on her. So, after dropping out of college — she hadn't fit in and money always seemed to be an issue — and drifting from one dead-end job to the other, she started her own business, Never Happened. Another cop she'd dated once had given her the idea and all the reason in the world she would ever need not to date cops. Still, she'd ended up dating Henson. Their relationship hadn't lasted the month and it was over more than three months ago. Truth was, it never should have started. When it came to men, apparently she had a faulty memory.

Giving credit where credit was due, that first cop had given her something to think about. What happened when a person committed suicide or died of natural causes or, God forbid, was murdered and wasn't found in a timely manner? Who cleaned up the mess? In the past it was usually a family member, but today, with elderly folks who have no family left or with those too busy to maintain family ties, who cleaned up the mess?

More often than not, there were diseases to worry about, and in the cases of advanced decomposition, normal body fluids could become toxic, making it dangerous for a regular Joe to do the cleanup.

All she'd had to do was get licensed in the cleanup and disposal of hazardous materials, learn to use the right cleaners and equipment and she was good to go. Her phone hadn't stopped ringing...