Slightly Irregular by Rhonda Pollero Page A

information I need?”
    “What’s in it for me?”
    God, I hated that his voice was so sexy. “A payment from Dane-Lieberman.”
    “Not good enough.”
    “Could you stop being a jerk and just do it?”
    “Can I wear a black suit, or do I need to wear a tux to the wedding?”
    “You’re not going to the wedding.”
    “You invited me.”
    “So now I’m uninviting you.”
    “That’s very poor etiquette.”
    “Yeah, well, I’ll consult Emily Post later. Right now I need a name and address.”
    “Be happy to. But not until you answer my question. Suit or tux?”
    “It doesn’t matter since you won’t be at the wedding. Tony is my escort.”
    “Your mother arranged that, so it doesn’t count. You, on the other hand, personally invited me.”
    Frustrated, I pounded my phone on the cushioned driver’s seat. “And we both know that was purely designed to frost my mother’s cookies. Which also means I can un invite you. Can we get back to the reason I called?”
    “In a minute. I have no problem with Tony going as a guest. We’re friends. But he’s already got someone to escort.”
    “Who?”
    “His daughter.”
    “You’re an ass.”
    “I love it when you talk dirty.”
    “I’m hanging up now.”
    “Don’t be childish.”
    “Me? You’re the one being annoying.”
    “I’m also the one who knows you’re looking for information on Donald and Wanda Jean Bollan.”
    “How can you know that when I haven’t even given you the post office box?”
    “I’m very perceptive.”
    “No, you’re a freak of nature.”
    “I’m a freak who knows they live at 101 Collier Lane.”
    “Thanks,” I snapped, then instantly pressed End.
    I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to convince my GPS that Collier Lane was a road in or around Indiantown. After the irritating conversation with Liam, I was not in the mood for the GPS to cop an attitude. I decided to go to the closest gas station to ask for directions.
    I got a lot of looks when I got out of the car in my five-inch heels, walked around a tractor with its hood raised, past the pumps where three men with tricked out pickups openly ogled me, before I finally reached the entryway to the garage bay. “Excuse me!”
    A lanky teenager with more acne than skin and a middle-aged man with a protruding belly came out from the back. The pencil-necked kid stared at my boobs while the older man wiped grease onto his sweaty, possibly-was-once-white T-shirt.
    “Ma’am,” he greeted.
    “I’m trying to find Collier Lane.”
    The two men looked at each other. “You know where it is, boy?”
    “Back down 710, I think. Yeah, yeah. It’s just after the trailer park. The Bollan place is out there.”
    “Right, right. Sleepy’s place,” he said nodding.
    Sleepy? What was he? One of the freaking seven dwarfs? The older of the two gave me vague directions. “Thank you.”
    Doing the best I could to follow instructions like “look for the live oak with the two stumps next to it on the left,” I kept driving deeper into the groves and sugarcane fields. After passing the rodeo and the trailer park, I slowed until I saw a crudely fashioned street sign.
    Collier Lane was nothing more than a dirt road marked by a slanted mailbox with plastic spinners and red reflector dots on the leaning post. At the base of the post was a faded ceramic planter with a man in a sombrero pulling a cart filled with plastic flowers. Not exactly PC. I made the right and slowly crept up the road, driving in slalom fashion to avoid the deep potholes. It took about three minutes before a structure came into view.
    Calling it a home was a stretch. It was a trailer with a curled and dented aluminum skirt. Twelve dogs came rushing toward my car, some barking, some growling, all scary. There were two cars on the side of the house. Both had weeds jutting up through them. On the opposite side was an older-model truck with as much rust as paint under a crudely constructed carport. Well, it wasn’t a