Cops and Comix
By Rhys Ford
4.5/5
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A Murder and Mayhem Short
It’s all fun and games until someone leaves a dead body on the floor.
Life for comic book store owner Alex Martin usually runs to the mundane. Sure, he has a regular influx of geeks and freaks, but for the most part, it’s a familiar weird. That all changes when he opens up Planet X Comics one morning and finds a corpse in the middle of his shop.
When Detective James Castillo is called in to investigate, Alex is torn between wanting to climb the man like a tree and giving him a wide berth. Luckily for Alex, the handsome detective is just as interested in him—as a suspect in the murder.
Rhys Ford
Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and is a two-time LAMBDA finalist with her Murder and Mayhem novels. She is also a 2017 Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Florida Authors and Publishers President’s Book Awards for her novels Ink and Shadows and Hanging the Stars. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications. She shares the house with Harley, a gray tuxedo with a flower on her face, Badger, a disgruntled alley cat who isn’t sure living inside is a step up the social ladder, as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep of a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people. Rhys can be found at the following locations: Blog: www.rhysford.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author Twitter: @Rhys_Ford
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Cops and Comix - Rhys Ford
Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Text
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By Rhys Ford
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Copyright
Cops and Comix
By Rhys Ford
A Murder and Mayhem Short
It’s all fun and games until someone leaves a dead body on the floor.
Life for comic book store owner Alex Martin usually runs to the mundane. Sure, he has a regular influx of geeks and freaks, but for the most part, it’s a familiar weird. That all changes when he opens up Planet X Comics one morning and finds a corpse in the middle of his shop.
When Detective James Castillo is called in to investigate, Alex is torn between wanting to climb the man like a tree and giving him a wide berth. Luckily for Alex, the handsome detective is just as interested in him—as a suspect in the murder.
To the Five and Elizabeth North
For making all the death and geekery fun.
Acknowledgments
TO MY beloved Five—Jenn, Penn, Tamm, and Lea. My life without you all would be joyless. And easier to cook around. But still… joyless. Sour cream is good.
To my other sisters whom I adore, Ree, Ren, Lisa and Mary.
Thanks as always go to Dreamspinner—Elizabeth, Lynn, Grace, Liz and her team, Naomi (who is forced to suffer through my flailings), Amanda, Andrea, Sue, Paul and the rest of the Ark. Seriously, thank you.
THERE WAS a dead body on his floor. Well, the comic book shop’s floor, but it was his shop, so technically it was his floor.
And if Alex’s heart kept trying to squirm its way out of his rib cage as it fled in terror, there would soon be another one.
Leaning against the steel-reinforced glass door to his comic book shop, Alex pressed his fist against his chest and willed his galloping pulse to calm down. His racing heartbeat not only ignored the scolding, it seemed to kick it up a step, until it felt like he’d injected jalapeno juice directly into his veins. Fear apparently mimicked an overdose of Mexican food—or at least that was how Alex saw it.
Outside, Los Angeles continued on its merry way as if there weren’t a dead body lying facedown in front of Planet X’s bargain table.
A scrubbed-out butter container with his leftover pad thai hit the floor when his already cold fingers went numb. Some part of his brain hoped the top hadn’t come off, more because the pad thai’d come out pretty well, considering it was the first time he’d cooked something that exotic. Belatedly he wondered if he should check on the man, if it was a man. From where Alex stood, he couldn’t actually tell.
He took a step toward the too-still form on the universe-patterned industrial carpet he’d scored from a theater closing but then nearly stepped on the dropped butter container and stopped in his tracks. Normally he was through the door by nine, anticipating opening the shop at ten, but today he’d been running a bit late. Thankful for the single designated space he got from the strip mall, he’d parked his Mini up front and got out, figuring he’d just open a little bit early and do anything he needed to catch up on while he waited for customers.
But now, with a dead body, it looked like Planet X probably wouldn’t be opening anytime soon.
Shit, it’s a crime scene,
Alex said to no one in particular. The dead body surely didn’t care. If it even was a dead body. "How long do they need to keep the store locked up for a crime scene? God, that was selfish. Shit,