by Adan Ramie
"We're on a road trip to the coast," Lee dodged, but the woman nodded, still smiling.
"What can I get you to drink?"
"What's the sweetest drink you have that packs a punch?" Lee asked, and Ruby shot her a dirty look.
The bartender grinned. "Do you like ice cream?" she asked Ruby, and was answered with a nod. "What about a Screaming Orgasm?"
Ruby's eyes popped wide, and she turned to give Lee a confused look. Lee laughed and held her fist out to the bartender to bump. The bartender thumped her fist against Lee’s, then looked to Ruby, expectantly.
"You'll like it," Lee said. "It's like coffee ice cream that will get you drunk."
Ruby nodded to the bartender, who darted around the bar, gathering ingredients. While she stood in one place mixing, she threw back over her shoulder: "And you?"
"Do you know how to make a Flat-Liner?" Lee asked. The bartender raised a bottle in assent. "I'll take one of those and a Bud Light Lime."
Ruby raised an eyebrow to Lee, who replied with a wolfish grin. "What the hell is a Flat-Liner?" Ruby asked.
"High alcohol content," she answered. "With Tabasco sauce for a kick. The Lime washes it down so smooth."
"How much do you drink?"
Lee leaned in closer as a man's voice came over the loudspeaker. "A lot," she said, her face turned to the stage.
Ruby took the offered drink from the bartender and sucked down a large gulp. The frozen mass poured down her throat and rose into her brain with a chilly zap that threw off her equilibrium for a moment. She slapped a hand to her forehead, and the bartender looked on, apologetic, as she dropped off Lee's shot and beer.
"Is she all right?"
Lee leaned down and looked into Ruby’s face, then turned to the bartender and shot her a quick smile. "She's fine. Brain freeze."
"Take it slow." The bartender slapped the counter in a friendly farewell before she darted off to take another drink order.
Lee rubbed the small of Ruby's back as Ruby chuckled softly. "I guess it really has been a while since I've had anything like this."
"I don't think it's a good idea to make it habit enough to be good at drinking," Lee answered. "Just try not to kill yourself, and we won't do it again."
Ruby looked into Lee's serious eyes and smiled, then straightened her body and grabbed her drink. "A few drinks never hurt anyone," she said.
Lee laughed. "Famous last words, baby," she said, then led her out into the swarm of rainbow-colored revelers. "Do you want to sit, or dance?"
"Sit and drink this one, then go dance for a while before we have another," Ruby said. Lee led her to a tiny, unoccupied table near the stage, on which a beautiful man in drag was lip-syncing an old Mariah Carey song.
They watched her do two numbers, then the host walked back on stage to announce the next act. A girl with a guitar and a microphone stand came out, swept her eyes over the audience, and landed on Ruby and Lee with a big smile.
"Well, it looks like we have some strangers in the audience tonight," the girl said into the microphone, and Ruby blushed crimson at having all those eyes turned toward her. She stuck her straw in her mouth and pulled the comforting, slushy mixture down her throat. Lee dropped her arm almost unconsciously around Ruby’s shoulders, but her smile stayed on through her shot. "They look like a couple. Are you a couple?" the girl asked, leaning down toward them with the mic.
"I should be so lucky," Lee answered, and raised her beer in salute to the woman on stage.
"Well, you'd make a sexy one," the singer said, and the audience answered her with catcalls. "I want to dedicate my first song to you, then. Love is hard, but if you keep the faith, you'll find your Ms. Right one day." She burst into a rocking acoustic song as Ruby blushed to match her name.
"What did you mean by that?" she asked. When Lee didn't immediately respond, she tapped her on the shoulder, and Lee turned toward her. She repeated her question more loudly.
Lee thought for a moment before leaning forward to speak into her ear. "I guess what I meant was that I wish we could have met under different circumstances."
"What kind of different circumstances?" Ruby asked, her cheek pressed against Lee's. The warmth from her skin felt good on Ruby's suddenly chilly skin
Lee shrugged and pulled away. "Something else," she said, and turned her attention to the stage.
Ruby watched Lee as she studied the performance and wondered where her feelings were coming from. By all accounts, Lee had forced her into a dangerous situation, and had her on the run from two crazy men and probably the police. What’s worse, it seemed she just kept digging them deeper.
But hadn’t she already been on the run when they met? Would she really have gotten very far if she hadn't literally run into Lee and Josie that night? Wasn't Josie's death her fault, and hadn't she, just a little, wanted to bring the volatile, dangerous Lee into her home – and if her husband happened to come home early, as he sometimes did, let her take care of him?
"Let's go dance," Lee said. She stood, grabbed Ruby by the hand, and pulled her out of her seat before she could protest. Ruby followed without a fight.
CHAPTER 18
Harry stretched out across the threadbare sheets of her queen-sized bed. It was too big for her; even in the most fitful of sleeps, Harry barely moved an inch. But it came in handy when she had company, as she did a few times a month. Tonight’s flavor laid across half of the bed, asleep and covered to the chin with the old, faded quilt she had requested after their romp. One leg the color of wet beach sand poked from beneath it.
She grinned at the purple-painted toenails as she slipped off the bed and into her slacks. She pulled on a t-shirt, tugged her hair back into a ponytail, and walked across her tidy apartment to the massive windows. The windows were the reason she picked the small, fourth-floor apartment the year before. They almost made her feel like she wasn’t alone in the world.
The detective fished through her pockets and pulled out her phone. The notification light blinked, and she swiped the face of the phone to read her messages. A few she easily ignored; conquests past their expiration date, pharmacy reminders, and bills posted online. Two messages caught her eye, both from Cal.
The first was a reply to an earlier request she had made of him: "Put out a BOLO on Barsten. Also found the sister. She’ll meet us when we’re ready, but says she doesn’t know anything about her."
The second was less hopeful: “Briggs is ready to move on.”
Harry reached in her pocket with her free hand for the cigarettes that weren’t there. She swore out loud and the woman in the bed shifted.
“You okay?” her date asked through a haze of sleep.
“I’m fine,” Harry answered. “Go back to sleep. I’m just going to step outside and make a call.”
Her lover groaned as she turned over and pulled the quilt over her head. Harry waited for her soft snoring to start up again, then slipped out the door onto the balcony. She dialed the number with one hand still in her trouser pocket; not finding what it was looking for, she brought it back out with a sigh. Somehow, she always forgot that she had stopped smoking over a year before.
“Detective Thresher.” The voice on the line was quizzical to the point of suspicion, but it wasn’t as much a question as it was a statement.
“Busy,” Harry answered, trying to put a smile in her voice.
“This is CSS Biznicki." A pregnant pause. "I didn’t expect a call from you, especially this late at night. Aren’t you off duty?”
Harry knew better than to expect much; she hadn’t done much to endear herself to the young analyst since her arrival, and despite the rookie’s admiration, she knew she hadn’t earned her respect back after that last snub. She made a mental note to be nicer to her.
“I’m sorry to call so late, but I just got a message about the case I’m on, and I can’t come in to check myself.”
Busy sighed. Harry heard the strikes on a keyboard that spoke of logging in, and knew she had the youn
g woman on her side, if only temporarily. “What is it, Detective? I was just headed out the door.”
Busy barely finished her sentence before Harry replied. “I was just wondering if Briggs had suspended the case I’m on.”
A few more keystrokes clacked quietly in the background. Harry listened to the slow, steady sound of Busy's breath, and without trying, she started to imagine what she would sound like if she were more worked up. The officer cleared her throat and tried to push the sweaty, lurid vision from her mind.
“The Sunshine Galaviz case, right?" Busy asked.
"Yeah, but in particular, the lines I have up on Malena Barsten.”
A few more clicks of the keys, and Harry heard Busy shift the phone to her other hand. "They're not suspended, but you have been flagged. You don’t have anything?”
Harry groaned, and rubbed a hand over her eyes. “Not much. Just a weird vibe.”
Keys clacked, and Harry knew the CSS was logging out. “Well, Detective, I think you’d better get more than a vibe soon, or the Captain is going to shift you to another case. I heard something in the break room about a potential Silver Alert.”
Harry let out a snort, then opened the door to walk back into her apartment. “I’m sure Granny just went for a joyride. Everyone needs to stop freaking out, and start letting their grandparents have lives and longer leashes.”
“You’re probably right,” Busy said.
Harry hesitated for a moment before she spoke again. She wanted to apologize to Busy for being a jerk, but apologies weren't her strong suit. "Hey, Busy?"
"Yeah?"
Harry covered her phone and blew out a breath, then uncovered it and started, "I just..." Coward. "I was just wondering if you had any leads on fingerprints found at the Galaviz scene."
Busy was silent for a moment, then clicked a few more times—logging back into the system, then searching the files—before she adjusted the phone on her shoulder again.
"Okay, I have the normal amount for Galaviz, three for Barsten, and a baker's dozen unidentified. What's funny is that the best print I lifted came from that picture frame. Someone named Ruby Stonestreet. Wait, that’s Ruby Stonestreet Isles. She must have been married years after she was printed. I'll send the info to you."
Her voice had softened, and Harry wondered idly what the young woman had planned for the rest of her evening. She pushed the thoughts away, and forced a professional tone. “Thank you for checking for me, Busy.”
A pause. “No problem, Detective. Good night.”
“Good night. Get home before someone calls and leaves you burning the candle at both ends again. Too many long nights aren’t good for you.”
Busy made a noise in the back of her throat. It didn’t sound friendly or appreciative, and Harry cursed herself for opening her big mouth. “I can take care of myself, thanks all the same.”
She hung up before Harry had a chance to retort. Harry closed and locked the door behind her, slipped her phone into its charging cradle, then slid her trousers off and draped them over the back of her desk chair. When she turned toward her bed, she found her date up on one elbow, watching her.
“Did I wake you again?” Harry asked.
The woman shook her head and held out a hand to Harry, who climbed in the bed beside her and twisted the knob to turn off the bedside lamp. In the dim light that shone through the windows, she watched the quilt fall back to reveal flushed skin that shone as if lit from within. As one long leg slid over her torso, a smile crept over her lips, and her eyes closed. In her mind, the eager young CSS unfastened the top button of her uniform, and Harry lost herself in fantasy.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD THE two detectives entered the next morning was picturesque. Trees lined up in perfect rows, the houses behind them painted in a complimentary color palette, none finer than the others, but all far above the annual salary of the neighborhood where either of the city's finest lived.
In the driveway, Harry and Cal sat in their car as the morning sun brightened. One stared up at the house, the other at the neighborhood itself, both in awe. Cal cracked a peanut, dropped the shell to the floor, and shook his head as he chewed.
“Are you still eating those things?”
“I like them,” Cal said, and shrugged. "This neighborhood is nice.” He drew the last word out in a low whistle.
Harry snorted. "That's not doing it justice. This neighborhood is too nice. Stephen King nice. Creepy robot wife nice." She pushed open her door, then turned to her partner. "Brush off your nuts and try to look presentable, huh?"
She slid out and closed the door with a slam that echoed through the quiet. No dogs barked and no birds caught the air in flight. "This place gives me the creeps."
Cal closed his door and brushed the last of the salt and shells off his plain clothes. He shoved his hands into his pockets and whistled again. "Man, this place is like a hotel. Must be nice."
Harry walked through the gate in the little white fence and up to the front door. She waited for Cal to saunter up before she knocked loudly on the polished wood of the front door. She listened, but no sound came from inside. She crouched down and flipped up the welcome mat. Cal chuckled.
"You think these people leave a key under the mat?"
"I've seen it happen," Harry said, her face twisted in a frown.
"Why don't we poke around back and see what we can see?"
Harry looked around, knocked again, and waited another beat for someone to answer the door. When no one came, she shrugged and followed Cal, who was already halfway around the house. The lawn was neatly cut, no clippings left to mar the uniform surface, and Harry wondered idly how long a service would tend to your house after you dropped off the map.
"How far in advance do you think they pay to keep their grass done?" she asked.
Cal shrugged. "No clue. I've never had anyone do my yard work."
Harry snorted. "You don't have a yard."
Her partner bent down and ran his fingers across a large, dark stain that someone had tried to scrub off the wood on the back patio. "Who needs one?" he said, but Harry could tell his head wasn't on lawn maintenance.
"Blood?" she asked.
Cal nodded. "Looks like." He took a picture with his phone. "We have someone come swab it, and we have probable cause for search, especially if Mrs. Isles isn’t available.”
"Yeah, but it could be anything. Oil, or soy sauce. Let's keep looking." She walked across the patio to the back door, and leaned in to inspect a stain no bigger than a nickel. "Hey, Cal, look at this."
He hopped up from the crouch and walked over, phone in hand. "What do we have?"
Harry grinned at him and pointed. "It looks like some beautiful ridge detail."
Cal rolled his eyes. "You would find the bloody fingerprint."
"Let's roll back and see if we can sweet talk someone into getting that print taped today so we can run it. Maybe we'll get lucky and get some results before the end of the month."
As Harry pulled out her phone, the back door opened a few feet away. Harry took a picture of the print, then stuffed her phone into her trouser pocket. Cal straightened to his full height as the man in the doorway blocked out the light from within the house like a dark cloud.
"Mr. Isles," Cal guessed. "We have some questions for you."
CHAPTER 19
Sweaty and exhausted, Lee leaned her head against the bathroom's tile wall and let cool water lick her fingers from a slow-running tap. In the unlocked stall behind her, Ruby fought through a drunken haze out of tight jeans. Lee could just see her reflected in the mirror.
Her damp hair stood out dark against her pale forehead, and her cheeks were pink with exertion. Her thin blouse clung to her body, and where she tugged at the button of her pants, smooth skin peeked out and teased Lee’s imagination. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift beneath the stubborn fabric of Ruby's clothes.
"Why do I wear my clothes this tight?" Ruby asked, and kicked the bathroom door. Lee chuckled softly. "It
's not funny. I think I pulled a muscle."
"Need some help?" Lee didn't move, and kept her eyes closed. “I don’t mind,” she continued.
Ruby grunted, then groaned with relief as she finally won her battle. "I got it." Ruby sighed, then struggled back into her pants and out of the stall. She washed her hands with surprising efficiency, then turned to Lee. "Are you okay?"
Lee nodded, turned off the tap, and wiped her hands on her jeans. "I'm good," she said, and rubbed the back of one hand across her forehead. "I just need to get back to the motel, take a shower, and crawl into that disgusting bed."
Ruby groaned. "It's probably crawling with STDs."
"I think the excessive amount of bleach they used killed all those," Lee said. She pushed away from the wall, then opened the door for Ruby.
Lee led Ruby out of the crowded bathroom hall, back into the club, and out the front door. She stepped up to the car, unlocked the door, and was about to climb into the driver's seat when Ruby stopped her.
"You can't be thinking of driving," Ruby said, one hand on Lee's to stay it.
Lee snorted. "Do you think you'd do any better?"
"Well, no," Ruby admitted. She leaned against the car and pulled Lee away from the driver's seat. "But we can wait it out. Maybe there's an all-night diner within walking distance..." She scanned the night, then turned her gaze back to Lee. "Or we could hang out in the car and listen to music. We probably still have some stale Corn Nuts or something in the glove compartment."
"Or," Lee said, and positioned herself between Ruby's legs, "we could just climb in the car and work off some of the drinks the old-fashioned way."
"What's the old-fashioned way?" Ruby asked. She ran her fingertips down Lee’s arm.
Ruby licked her lips and, subconscious or not, Lee took it as a green light. She wrapped a hand around the back of Ruby's slender neck, just under where her hair fell to touch her back, and pulled her face in. Ruby's eyes closed as her lips touched Lee's. A shudder ran through her, and Lee wrapped her other arm around Ruby's lower back to cradle her closer.