Page 13 of The Alibi Club

Within two minutes, Jamie heard a ping on her phone. Theo had written back.

“Hi. I’m Theo. What really hooked me was your original opening.”

Cheeky. Jamie caught herself smiling but not really knowing why. Was it the thrill of instant attention? Surely, she wasn’t that easy. Had loneliness warped her senses and made her desperate for even the most basic kindness? The whole experience was like a dopamine hit. Which made Jamie instantly skeptical.

“Easy, I’m a virgin on here.”

“Whoa.”

“Correction. I mean a virgin as it pertains to online dating. Not a virgin in the uh, traditional sense.”

“Can I see some ID? I don’t want to be on the next episode of To Catch a Predator.”

Jamie smiled again. She typed, “No one is more surprised than me to learn that I am forty-one years old and, as it turns out, single.”

“Spring chicken.”

“I’m not sure ‘spring’ still applies. But chicken’s close enough.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Jamie.”

“Thanks, Theo. I hope this doesn’t seem too forward but I’ve been told by a reliable source with a decade of online dating experience under his belt, that if we hit it off on the apps, we should meet as soon humanly possible as to avoid the pitfalls of too much communication before meeting in real life.”

“Has this unnamed veteran of online dating had any success?”

“My brother. Getting married shortly.”

“Copy that. Let’s make a date.”

Jamie smiled and within ten minutes they had decided they would meet on the beach at Tenth Street at seven PM the following evening, and go for a glass of wine at Uncorked, a great wine bar just up from The Strand. “Let’s meet on the sand at sunset” felt like a romantic bridge too far for a first meeting, but Theo had suggested it and Jamie thought being amenable was a good idea. Even though she fought her instincts to say no, she had decided that when it came to dating, it was time to take some chances.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Coffee and Convicts

CLIFF

As introductions go, Cliff thought he was off to a good start with his parole officer.

“Do not fuck with me,” Dez Wheeler said, as she swirled oat milk into her fair-trade coffee and stared at Cliff Weston with one eyebrow raised in suspicion.

Cliff met his parole officer, Dezireé Wheeler, ex-prosecutor, tall, Black, and disturbingly sexy, at the Petal Café in downtown Manhattan Beach. As it was their first meeting since he’d been paroled three weeks before from a maximum security prison upstate, he was a little nervous.

“Ms. Wheeler,” Cliff began.

“Call me Dez,” she interjected.

“Dez.” Cliff adjusted in his seat and leaned a little closer, trying to be earnest. “I wouldn’t dream of fucking with you.” It was the truth. Cliff found her sexy, but Dez Wheeler was also intimidating as hell. At a statuesque five foot eleven, even taller in heels, she wore black jeans, a short white leather jacket that purposely exposed the .357 Magnum just inside, and a straightforward manner that stated, “I take zero bullshit.”

“I like you, Cliff, but if I hear so much as you fart in the direction of a jewelry store, I will send you back to Corcoran Prison faster than one of these spandex-clad cyclists can get on my nerves.” She huffed at a cyclist who strode by wearing bright green cycling shorts so tight she could see his future family. “Which is pretty damn fast.”

“M.A.M.I.L.s,” Cliff said as he followed her annoyed gaze to a gaggle of cyclists congregating by the muffin case. “Middle-Aged Men in Lycra. An abomination.”

Dez chuckled. He had put her at ease. Which was a good thing considering she could deem even the smallest of missteps a violation and send him back to the joint. But the sound of a woman laughing was like music to him; it eased him, made his shoulders unclench. It was the little things he missed most when he was locked up with violent, hardened men. No one chuckles in prison unless there’s an angle.

“Look, it’s just a little suspect that you wound up in Manhattan Beach, an extremely affluent community. These people are rich. Today was the first time I have ever seen a Bentley SUV, right there pulling into that Starbucks. That was new for me. And get this. It was painted matte orange, Cliff. Do you know what that means?”

“You can’t buy good taste?”