I wrote this for a short story contest...didn't win...I made a few changes and sent it to Woman's World for the 1000 word mini-mystery...they didn't want it either.

  I like horses as much as the next girl, but thoroughbred racing is a whole 'nother stretch of track. I can't see the attraction of losing my money while watching large animals run at dangerous speeds. Especially not on an oven-like August day, when any hint of a breeze only circulated the manure smell through the stands and out, reaching not only the Hilton across the street but the state prison up the road--a place with which I was intimately familiar. The prison, that is, not the Hilton. On the other hand, it beat working. The horses lined up, each hoof stirring up little dust clouds. Could I get a job as a jockey if I lost a hundred pounds? I mused, completely unprepared for the blast from my past erupting to my left. "Hey! CeeCee Townsend!" someone cried. I turned. I should have run. No, no, no! Not on my worst hair day of the year. "How ya doing?" he said. "Long time no see." Not long enough. "Jason. How are you?" Of course it had to be Jason Vanderbilt, captain of the football team, Most Likely To Succeed, and, whether he knew it or not, The Cutest Boy At Mercy Hills High School. His brushed blond hair hadn't a touch of gray, and the trademark smirk was still in place. Oh, he knew it, all right. The Cutest Boy had become the Cutest Man. The only difference between his yearbook picture and the man now standing in front of me was a trim goatee, a Pierre Cardin suit, and maybe five pounds. I'm sure he knew that, too. What I didn't want him to know was what I'd been doing since we'd graduated. "You look great!" he went on with the patent sincerity which had fooled me once, twenty years ago. Not now. I looked like crap and I knew it, but time, too much sun, and a whole lot more than five pounds will do that to a person. "So do you," I said, as coolly as I could in ninety-five degrees. "What are you up to these days?" he went on, raising his voice as the horses made another lap. They kicked up dust which, by some magical force, managed to land on me and not him. Do not ask me what I do for a living, I thought. Job? Don't make me laugh. "I'd rather hear about you, Jason," I said, sweat trickling down my back. "How have the last twenty years treated you since you married the homecoming queen?" After standing me up, I might add. Twice. "Well, let's see." Giving the matter deep thought only brought out his dimples. I squinted behind my sunglasses in the blatant sun, and he wasn't even sweating. It should have been physically impossible. "I'm the financial manager here--basically a glorified accountant. I handle the global accounts. We have branches in New York, the Caymans, and Switzerland. Greta is doing terrific, she still sings with the local opera. We have a house over in Lehigh, now. Its a silly peach thing, kind of off by itself. Maybe you've seen it." "I have. The Georgian pillars are a nice touch," I squirmed. "I see you added a wing." "Oh, yeah. The kids wanted their own pool. Where are you hanging these days?" Most of the time? With narcs, gunrunners, and guys who wrote bad checks in a diner over on 47th, but I wasn't going to tell him that. "Here and there." My brisk answers weren't putting him off. "What are you doing for a living?" he asked, patting my hand with fingers free of paper cuts or even that callus that develops from constant pencil pushing. He probably used a calculator. It would preserve the manicure. I was too busy observing the svelte hands to think up a good answer. "Let's just say I'm coasting, courtesy of the state of Georgia." "Oh, a government job?" "You might say that." I quickly changed the subject to head him off. "How are your children?" "Mary's at the Sorbonne right now, and Max is captain of his football team. Just like his old man." Well-capped teeth grinned all by themselves. "How's your family?" What could I say? That my husband had left me for the kid's baby sitter? That my oldest had turned to body piercing as a form of self-expression, and she had a lot to express? The second oldest wanted to be a race car driver and practiced on my '92 Buick? Don't even start on the most dangerous, the youngest, who managed to combine the looks of Mary-Kate and Ashley with the soul of Charles Manson. The best I could say was no one was currently incarcerated. "Fine. Sounds like youve done pretty well for yourself, Jason, on just an accountant's wages." Another grin. He could signal the seventh fleet with those teeth. "I've always been a pretty good businessman," he said, with the show of modesty which had melted the hearts and softened the brains of the entire female student body. "You've just got to keep hustling, you know? And--" here he pulled his trademark swoop, bending close to my ear as if I were the only girl in the world, "--I've always thought that what Uncle Sam doesn't know won't hurt me." "Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about, Jason," I said. "What, CeeCee?" "I'm afraid that's Special Agent Cecelia Townsend with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to you." The boyish grin disappeared. I wiped some of the sweat off my face and took out a pair of handcuffs. "I have a warrant for your arrest on counts of racketeering, money laundering, and illegal betting. Could you turn around, please?" The End