Come and Get Me

by August Norman

  “It’s Jerry Greenwood. Catch you in the middle of something?”

  Caitlin turned off the water. “Just taking a break. Any news?”

  “Wondered if you had dinner plans.”

  “Technically, yes,” Caitlin said, back in business mode. “But if something’s come up—”

  “Oh no, just thought you might, you know, want to grab dinner.”

  “Oh.” Caitlin patted herself with a towel. “My friend’s expecting me around seven. Why don’t you join us?”

  She gave him the details, then called Lubbers. Mary had no problem with the extra guest.

  * * *

  When the doorbell rang, Mary gave Caitlin the boy-crazy look of a thirteen-year-old, then ran for the door yelling, “Hide the drugs—it’s the cops!”

  Caitlin took two glasses of red wine off the kitchen island. “Your wife is hilarious.”

  Aaron Gaffney munched a slice of cucumber. “She’s a freak, but she makes me food.”

  Greenwood joined the party. He wore a navy-blue sport coat over a white shirt and gray slacks. Two feet behind, Lubbers did a pelvic thrust.

  Caitlin handed him one of the glasses. “Drink this. You’re going to need it.”

  Mary grabbed a large salad bowl from the counter and led them all into the dining room. “I hope you like vegetables, Detective.”

  “Please, call me Jerry,” he said, taking the chair across from Caitlin. “Are you vegetarians?”

  Aaron coughed up a bit of water. “Shit, Mary, there’s gonna be more than just the salad, right?”

  She started the bowl with Caitlin. “Yes, my caveman lover, there will be more than just salad. I have spinach lasagna—”

  “As in no meat?”

  Mary smacked him on the head, took her seat. “I made chicken too. This salad is special. All organic, all farm fresh.”

  The bowl got to Greenwood, who filled his plate. “Organic, huh? Somewhere local?”

  Caitlin jumped in before Mary could mention their adventure. “She wanted to show me that California wasn’t so special.”

  “Well, she’s right,” he said, digging into his greens.

  Mary launched into matchmaker. “Have you ever lived there, Jerry?”

  He looked up with his mouth full, too polite to answer. Caitlin filled the gap. “Detective Greenwood had his big-city time, Mary. New York.”

  He smiled, swallowed. “Did I tell you that, Caitlin?”

  “Not with your words.”

  “Didn’t know you could read so much from my body language.”

  Caitlin took a sip of wine but didn’t dare face Mary. Obvious flirting would only fuel the woman’s desire to get her laid. She caught Aaron’s eye instead.

  Whether lovingly oblivious or picking up Caitlin’s desperation, the good professor changed the subject. “New York, huh? I taught composition at NYU for four years. How long did you live in the city?”

  “More than a decade.”

  Greenwood spun the story. His wife had received a scholarship to Columbia Law, and his three years with Bloomington PD had gotten him hired by the NYPD. Six months before 9/11, he’d started in patrol. The table let him move through his time line without opening that wound. He told them how he’d transferred to major crimes, worked his way to homicide. His wife’s work in family law had kept them in a Brooklyn brownstone.

  Mary found the appropriate opening. “Why did you come home?”

  “My father-in-law was hospitalized. Melissa wanted to make peace in case he passed.” Greenwood glanced at Caitlin, reached for his wine.

  “And your wife?” Lubbers refilled his wine glass. “Do you mind if I ask how she died?”

  “Shit, Mary,” Aaron said, “is the lasagna ready?”

  “I’ve got a timer. It’ll go off.”

  “How about an awkward meter, babe? Got one of those?”

  Greenwood held a hand up. “I don’t mind talking about it. Melissa suffered from polycystic ovarian syndrome. It’s usually not serious, but she had a cyst rupture.”

  Mary leaned in. “You can die from that?”

  “If the hemorrhage causes an infection, but it wasn’t that.” He took a breath. “I was working on the south side of town. She was visiting her father at his nursing home, two blocks from Meadows Hospital, out by State Road Thirty-Seven. She’d gone through the pain before. They say it compares to what people with appendicitis feel. Trooper that she was, she didn’t want to waste an ambulance, and drove the two blocks. I left work to meet her. She parked in the lot, walked to the ER.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “They were re-curbing around the awning over the ER door. The sidewalk was messed up, so she cut through the construction.” He took another breath. “Same time, a cab swings up to the door. Driver’s looking at the back seat, where a nineteen-year-old is screaming at the top of her lungs, pushing out twins.”

  “Oh God,” Mary said.

  Greenwood nodded. “He thought he hit the curb. Didn’t even notice Melissa until an orderly came out. The bumper knocked her off her feet, her head hit the curb, and—” He made a futile wave with his hand, let the story end. He probably wiped tears away. Caitlin couldn’t tell. She, Mary, and Aaron were all busy doing the same.

  He broke the silence. “Should have warned you, I’m shit at parties.”

  Mary got up and threw her arms around his shoulders. “I’m the worst host in the world. What can I do to make this better? You can shoot me if you want. Did you bring your gun?”

  Greenwood laughed. “Maybe a slice of lasagna?”

  * * *

  The rest of dinner revolved around tales of the ridiculous. Mary and Aaron’s honeymoon disaster in Mexico, the time Caitlin got food poisoning at the mayor’s mansion, the various ways women had tried to convince Patrolman Greenwood to ignore their vehicular inebriation.

  “Let’s have a fire,” Mary said, leading the party to the porch. She and Aaron huddled over a firepit while Caitlin claimed a love-seat glider.

  Greenwood arrived with red wine reinforcements. “Room for two?”

  She took the wine, patted the cushion. Greenwood’s body rocked the entire couch.

  Mary called over to them. “We’re gonna do s’mores. You guys want in?”

  Caitlin knew the second she said yes, Lubbers and Aaron would disappear into the house. She’d pulled the same trick on a camping trip their junior year.

  She raised her glass. “Why not?”

  Mary nudged Aaron, and the two completed their play.

  Greenwood laughed. “Wow, Mary’s got an agenda.”

  “Picked that up, did you?”

  “Sure, I went to church camp in high school. I know the signs.”

  “How’d that turn out for you?”

  “Dry humping in sweat pants? Not as hot as it sounds.”

  Caitlin let a loud, manly laugh escape, the kind she reserved for scotch and cigars.

  “Wow,” Greenwood said. “You okay?”

  She reeled in her awkward. “Pretty damned good, actually. You?”

  The detective had his top two buttons undone and the right amount of chest hair poked through. No Magnum P.I. forest, but not waxed gym rat either. Caitlin already knew Jerry Greenwood would be great in bed—if he didn’t burst into tears.

  He looked to the sky. “Beautiful night, Caitlin.”

  She looked up to a full field of stars. It wasn’t the time, but she went there anyway. “Any luck with Paige Lauffer?”

  He met her back on Earth. “Where’d you and Mary get the organic vegetables? Little farm by Nashville?”

  “Maybe we don’t talk work tonight.”

  She leaned in, kissed the man. He met her lips with the perfect amount of pressure and desire—not one single tear.

  Who needed therapy?

  She touched his shoulder and felt the firm, corded muscle. His hands wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer. He had the grip of a man who could swing an axe. Caitlin loved the push of his li
ps, the firm, yet receptive play of a good kisser. She stepped up her game, stood, then straddled him. The glider’s springs squeaked like a thirty-dollar-a-night motel mattress, and Caitlin rode the wave with the same dirty passion.

  Greenwood reached up, held the side of her face with one hand. Caitlin pushed against him, felt the seam of her jeans hit the right place for both of them to know the night’s potential.

  “Should have worn those sweat pants, Detective.”

  “Would it be wrong if we left?”

  Caitlin kissed him again. “Let’s take a walk.”

  * * *

  It only took two blocks to get to Bryan Park.

  Caitlin glanced around the dark lawn. “It just occurred to me that you could get in serious trouble if we get caught.”

  He pressed himself against her. “I could get in trouble just for kissing you.”

  She felt the urgency of everything great in his slacks. “You’ve been warned.”

  She walked him to the place she and Darren Thompson rocked the world, introduced him to the limestone rhino. Pants around his ankles, her panties to one side, Greenwood gave her the best orgasm she’d had in a decade. No tears riding the statue this time.

  Nor the time after.

  When Greenwood finally joined her, Caitlin had lost count.

  Pants reassembled, shirts located, they landed on a park bench, his arm around her shoulder, her feet pulled up beneath.

  “Obviously, this won’t change anything between us,” he said, kissed her head.

  “Please, Greenwood. You’re not my first officer of the law.”

  “I could tell. No fear in the line of fire.”

  She craned her neck, kissed him again. The man’s lips tasted like her. She came up for air, stared out to the swaying branches of a maple tree, the sole witness to their session.

  Greenwood rubbed his fingertips on her forearm. “Want to get breakfast?”

  Caitlin found her phone, checked the time. “At one AM?”

  He laughed. “In the morning. You can tell me what you and Mary found at Amireau’s farm.”

  Caitlin kissed the man again. “I’ll call when I wake up.”

  CHAPTER

  30

  HE WATCHED THE lovers part through the lattice of the park’s gazebo, then checked the time. 1:12 AM. Almost five hours off schedule.

  Between his societal obligations, grooming and feeding Paige, and the regrettable human necessity of sleep, he’d only allocated one hour that afternoon to following Caitlin.

  Crouched in the bushes outside the guesthouse, hearing her hum, then watching her dress, then change, only to settle finally on her original outfit, he decided to stretch the hour until he saw the person Caitlin wanted to impress. Once he spotted the detective, the schedule went out the window. When the pair reached the park, nothing could drag him away. He was breaking his own rules, reckless.

  You’re reckless too, Caitlin, but wonderful. Do you know Greenwood’s using you? That he’ll hurt you? I wouldn’t. I’d protect you.

  First, he reminded himself there was no room for Caitlin in his collection; then he focused on the reason she’d made the schedule at all.

  Self-preservation.

  He needed to know if her investigation was getting close.

  Fucking the detective seemed pretty close.

  Seemed.

  But the detective had never found Angela. And if he couldn’t find Angela, he certainly wasn’t going to find Paige.

  CHAPTER

  31

  JUST AFTER TEN the next morning, Caitlin reached for her phone. She’d told the man she’d call, so she did.

  Greenwood answered via speaker. “What can we help with, Miss Bergman?”

  She’d caught him and Maverick walking into a Paige Lauffer task force meeting. So much for repeat sex. She hung up, reached for her running shoes, and set out to release endorphins through the less preferable act of jogging.

  She’d gone two miles before her phone rang in the middle of Dunn’s Woods, a grove of forested sanctuary in the southwest corner of campus. She didn’t recognize the number but knew the voice.

  Doris Chapman sounded agitated. “I can’t get a hold of Lakshmi. Have you heard from her today?”

  “Not since last night,” Caitlin said, biting back her next thought. When I ran away crying.

  “Me either. Maybe she’s ignoring me.”

  Caitlin heard the tinkle of ice cubes in a glass. Maybe Doris was more than agitated at ten in the morning.

  “Why would you think that?” The pause lasted long enough for Caitlin to check that her phone was still connected. “Doris?”

  “I got jealous.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I checked with her yesterday to see if you’d found anything new, and she said she couldn’t tell me. You see, now that you’re involved—”

  “I’ll call her, make sure everything’s okay.”

  “I can’t afford to have her stop talking to me. Angie and I stopped talking. Well, not talking, but she stopped telling me real things about her life.”

  “Doris—”

  “My daughter, my husband … I can’t lose Lakshmi.”

  Caitlin couldn’t let the woman spiral. “Doris, everything’s fine. We might have something.”

  “Something new?”

  “Please don’t take it personally, but we can’t afford to let anything slip. I’ll have Lakshmi call you, okay?”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Nothing to apologize about.”

  Five apologies later, Doris Chapman let her off the phone. She sent Lakshmi a text: Any luck last night? Give me a call when you can.

  A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the tall trees. Caitlin closed her eyes and counted to sixty, her body swaying with the wind.

  She opened her eyes, checked her phone. No reply.

  She ran another quarter mile, then stopped and checked again. Still nothing.

  In the nine days she’d been in Bloomington, six had started with some sort of communication with Lakshmi. Maybe it was nothing, but Caitlin changed her route, aiming instead for the girl’s apartment.

  What if something had happened? The last time Caitlin had seen her, she’d told the girl to handle her business. Lakshmi could have gone out to the farm and gotten herself in real trouble.

  She got to Lakshmi’s building, caught her breath, and knocked on the apartment door.

  No answer. Caitlin sent another text: You around? I’m at your place.

  No sounds of activity in the apartment, no sign of an imminent reply. She checked the parking lot. No Chapman-mobile either.

  “Shit,” Caitlin said out loud, pacing. “She could be studying, or seeing a movie, or hanging out with friends.”

  Except Caitlin knew she wasn’t doing any of those things. The girl ate, drank, and breathed Angela Chapman. She’d have her phone on and ready for any sort of news. Not just from Caitlin but from Doris as well.

  Where the hell are you?

  Caitlin’s stomach dropped. She’d told Lakshmi to follow the corner boys. The corner boys all worked for Amireau—the guy with the restraining order against her. Lakshmi could very well be in jail. But Greenwood would have mentioned it, right? They had slept together, after all.

  She reached for her phone, started to dial, then stopped, dropping her face into her palms.

  Slow down, Bergman. You’re losing it.

  She took a breath, exhaled, then dialed her phone.

  The sound of Scott Canton’s voice brought a moment of peace.

  “Scott, sorry to bug you on a Saturday, but I’m losing my shit.”

  “I never mind a bee that brings me honey, but what has you in such a frenzy?” He listened patiently as she summed up the situation, then responded in a reassuring tone. “The other day I dropped my phone in a toilet. By the time I got back from the mall with a new one, I had eight missed calls—and I’m seventy. You might be overreacting.”

  Caitlin k
icked the parking lot curb with her trainer. “Apparently that’s my thing now.”

  He laughed softly. “I’m sure she’ll call soon. In the meantime, allow me to present a calming distraction for the next two hours.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Fishing, dear girl. Come fish with me.”

  CHAPTER

  32

  HALF AN HOUR later, still no response from Lakshmi, Caitlin found Scott Canton on the south shore of Lake Lemon, locking oars into a rowboat. He wore a floppy hat, a multipocketed vest, and khaki shorts, but Caitlin didn’t see the one tool every fisherman needed.

  “Was I supposed to bring the pole?”

  “On days like today, I fish for beauty and truth. Same process, less mess.” He nodded toward the folder in her hand. “I don’t remember assigning any homework.”

  Caitlin held her assault report up to her chest. She’d run back to the guesthouse, changed clothes, headed for the door, then stopped. She could have shown up without the folder, but the contents weighed down her every step. “I’m tired of overreacting, Scott, tired of losing my shit. Do you think we could—”

  He nodded and offered his hand in assistance. “I think we must.”

  She got into the boat, and he took them into the still sheet of blue. No more than half a mile across, but twelve miles wide and surrounded by dense forest, clumps of reeds, and the occasional home. Caitlin dipped her fingers in the water. Cool, but not frigid.

  “I love it here,” Scott said between strokes. “Twenty-six miles of shoreline, hardly any speedboats.”

  Caitlin pointed to two breaks in the water, covered with a handful of trees. “I like the little islands.”

  “You do have a dark side.” He pointed back to the shore. “We started at Riddle Point, which is a cool enough launch for a beginning, but you picked the one spot on the lake with a literary name. Cemetery Island.”

  “Better not be any ghosts,” she said, tapping on her folder. “I brought my own.”

  She told him about her failed attempts to read through the contents and her impromptu traffic stop with Mary.

  He received the report with the solemnity of a soldier being handled a folded flag, then produced a pair of joints. “Before we begin, might I offer nature’s psychologist?”