Divorced, Desperate and Dead

by Christie Craig

Standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room of the bakery, he glanced out the broken window and saw blue lights flashing. Hoke’s Bluff backup had arrived, so he moved out of hearing range and pulled his phone from his pocket to call his own backup.

  It might have happened on Hoke’s Bluff turf, but Glencoe PD had a dog in the fight, too. Namely, Tommy and Marc’s murder—not to mention his own shooting—and he was damn certain all this was connected.

  He started to call the precinct, then decided to go straight to one of the top dogs in homicide—who also happened to be a friend. Sergeant Chase Kelly.

  Chase let out a few choice words, obviously not liking the interruption of his Friday night, and then said he and the other top dog, another friend, Jason Dodd, would arrive shortly.

  With that call behind him, he made another one.

  “You know, you really have what I call bad timing,” Turner said, answering his phone.

  Had he and Reese been doing the deed again? Lucky bastard. “Sorry, I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important.”

  “If you haven’t been shot at, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

  “Then I guess you aren’t going to kick my ass.”

  “Oh, hell. Are you okay?” Turner asked.

  “I’m fine, but they got my Camaro.” Cary glanced at his car from the window. Between the fender bender, and now this, it was gonna cost him a pretty penny to fix it.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at Sweet Tooth Bakery in Hoke’s Bluff on Main Street. And I need—”

  “Wait. Doesn’t that girl, Chloe Sanders, own that?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then Danny’s there, too?”

  “No,” Cary said, suddenly realizing how hard this was going to be to explain, and really just wanting to bypass that part.

  “Is Chloe Sanders there?”

  “Yup. Can you do me a big favor and run by Home Depot and pick up four sheets of plywood?”

  “But . . .”

  “I’ll pay you back.’

  “I know you will,” Turner said. “But I don’t understand. Danny was on a date with her.”

  “Yeah, and now she’s with me.” And he planned to keep it that way, too.

  “And how did that happen?” Turner asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “I guess not, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a hell of a story.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Cary said, thinking about Room Six. And Turner wouldn’t ever know. “Just come, please.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Oh . . . does Danny know?”

  “No,” Cary said and he wasn’t sure he wanted him to.

  “Then I’ll call him.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “He’ll be pissed if I don’t.” And Turner hung up.

  “Shit!” Cary muttered. This was going to be a cluster fuck.

  He’d barely hung up when his phone dinged with an incoming video message.

  Looking to see who it was from, he frowned. What was his sister up to?

  He hit play on the video and saw Pooch sitting by a full food bowl. His sister started talking. “Seriously, he won’t eat. I think he misses you.” She picked up a piece of dog food and tried to give it to the dog. Pooch growled. “See? Have a heart, brother, adopt him.”

  “Oh, hell no!” He hadn’t gotten the phone back in his pocket, when he heard a car engine roaring up and saw headlights. The cops still out front all grabbed their guns.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “Get your hands up!” Voices exploded outside.

  Cary drew his own weapon and rushed out to see what was happening.

  He saw the woman behind the wheel, then he spotted a streak of pink in her hair and he yelled for the officers to lower their weapons.

  “It’s okay. She’s a friend of the owner.”

  He moved to the side of the car. Sheri, if he remembered her name right, still had her arms up. Her eyes were wide.

  He opened her car door. “It’s okay.”

  She lowered her arms, got out of the car, and stared at him, then announced, “Wow. I almost didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.”

  The cops standing behind him had a good laugh.

  • • •

  Sheri came running up to Chloe and hugged her.

  “What are you doing here?” Chloe asked.

  “I go first,” Sheri said. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Chloe said, but having her best friend here had her throat tightening.

  And Sheri, knowing her as well as she did, recognized Chloe’s near panic and guided her into the office. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, it’s just been a difficult night . . . make that week.”

  Sheri gave her another hug then pulled back. “Were you robbed?”

  “No, they just drove by and shot out the windows, then returned and shot at us.”

  “Us?” Sheri asked, sounding concerned.

  “Cary and I.”

  “Okay . . .” Sheri frowned and then said, “The dress looks great, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” Chloe said.

  “Okay, now for another question. Where’s Dan? And what’s Johnny Depp doing here?”

  “His name is Cary.” Chloe sank into her office chair. “Can I just say long story?”

  “Hell no!” Sheri said. “I want details. I have a feeling this is gonna be good.”

  • • •

  Thirty minutes later, Chloe had given her friend the short version of what happened, and they sat at a back table watching the yelling match happening between the eight officers.

  “Why don’t they just pull out their dicks, measure them, and get it over with?” Sheri said and giggled.

  Chloe laughed. Supposedly, this was an argument between Hoke’s Bluff and Glencoe police about who was going to run the evidence. “I don’t see why they can’t just help each other.”

  “Because they’re men. Men don’t like sharing,” Sheri said and then she purred when another officer, Chloe’s date from earlier, walked into the diner.

  Chloe noticed Dan’s gaze shift around the room and stop on Sheri. She recalled how Dan had spent half their date asking about Sheri/

  “Is it just me, or are six of the eight officers here total hotties? Who knew there were so many hot cops?” Sheri said. “I’m gonna start running red lights on purpose. Then again, with my luck, it would be Chubby over there behind the wheel that day.”

  “Or it might be Dan,” Chloe said. “I think he’s into you.”

  “Who? Chubby?” Sheri asked.

  “No. Dan. He asked a lot of questions about you.”

  “He did not,” Sheri said.

  “Seriously,” Chloe said and then stopped talking when Dan started walking over.

  “Hello, ladies.” Dan smiled at Sheri before casting Chloe a look of caution. “I’m assuming my partner excused my absence earlier?”

  “He did,” Chloe said. Oddly, she hadn’t even considered that she should be angry at Dan. Which said a lot about her feelings for Cary.

  “So, no hard feelings?” Dan asked.

  “You’re off the hook,” she said and smiled.

  “Good. I’ll let you know when I feel the same about you.” There was a tease in his tone, but some seriousness as well.

  “What did I do?” Chloe asked.

  “You accepted a date with me when you’re sleeping with him,” Dan said, and nodded at Cary who walked up right then.

  Chloe’s mouth dropped open and her gaze shot to Cary, who looked a little shocked by his partner’s statement as well. Only not as shocked as her.

  “I’m not . . . We’re not . . .” She looked at Cary, waiting for him to jump in. He didn’t jump.

  He was too busy frowning at his partner. “Can I speak with you?” he said to Dan and then pulled him away.

  She and Sheri stood there, frozen, watching them leave. Then her friend cleared her throat. �
�You’re sleeping with Johnny Depp?”

  “No!” Chloe said and suddenly a little voice whispered: Not yet.

  • • •

  “What the hell! That was rude,” Cary growled at Danny, worried how he was going to explain this to Chloe.

  “I know. It occurred to me after I left that she should have never accepted a date with me.”

  “I don’t mean her,” Cary snapped. “You. You don’t say that to a woman.”

  “You don’t accept a date with a man when you’re sleeping with one of his friends.”

  “Don’t go there,” Cary snapped.

  Dan frowned. “Go where? You’re the one who’s going places you shouldn’t. I’m worried.”

  “About what?” Cary said, trying to control his anger because he knew he’d brought this on himself.

  “You. This chick has you by the balls.”

  She’d definitely come in contact with his boys, but Cary refused to believe anything else. “Let me worry about my own balls. I’m asking you to drop it.”

  “Drop what?” Turner asked, walking up.

  “I think our guy here is in deep with the bakery’s owner.”

  Turner scratched his cheek as if confused. “I thought you were the one taking her out tonight?”

  “I was,” Dan said. “But our buddy here hijacked it. They’re banging each other.” Dan took off and walked back inside.

  Turner looked at Cary and grinned. “I knew there was a good story.”

  Cary muttered a four-letter word under his breath and Turner laughed. Then Cary looked back inside to make sure Dan hadn’t gone back to cause more havoc with Chloe. “I swear, if he says one more thing to her, I’m gonna . . .”

  “What did he say to her?”

  “He told her I said we were having sex.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Why would Danny lie?”

  “He wasn’t. I mean, I kind of told him we were, but he wasn’t supposed to tell her.”

  “I’m lost. Why would you tell him you were sleeping with her when you weren’t?”

  “Because . . . because she doesn’t deserve to be Dannied.”

  Turner rubbed his cheek and studied him. “And why did you have me go buy plywood?”

  “Are you blind? Her windows are shot out.”

  “And it’s your job to take care of her, right? I’ll bet you nearly shit your pants when someone shot at her, too, huh?”

  Cary just stared at his friend, not liking what he was insinuating. “I’m a cop, I don’t like seeing anyone shot at.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Turner said, and put his hand on Cary’s shoulder. “It sneaks up on you, doesn’t it?”

  “What does?” Cary asked.

  “That feeling. It was the same with Reese. It’s like BAM. You meet her, and one minute she’s just a beautiful woman that you’d like to take to bed, and then it’s like lightning strikes, and all you know is that you’d walk in front of a firing squad to protect her. Hell, I trekked across the south trying to find a woman who told me she hated me. But you can’t stop yourself. It’s like suddenly, your sole purpose in life is to make sure they’re taken care of.”

  “I don’t have a clue what feeling you’re talking about,” Cary lied.

  “Poor Danny,” Turner said and laughed.

  “Why Danny?” Cary asked. He thought Turner was talking about him.

  “The No Ball and Chain Gang just lost another member.”

  It wasn’t that serious, Cary swore to himself, but it wasn’t easy either. He felt a lot of shit he didn’t want to feel.

  It’s not too late, a voice said in his head. He could run like hell. Get out while the getting was good. No one would be hurt.

  Yeah, make sure she was safe for tonight, then forget about her. Now that she’d been shot at, surely Hoke’s Bluff would take it upon themselves to make sure she was safe.

  Coward. The voice echoed in his head, and it sounded like the piece-of-pork elderly woman who had caused his accident earlier.

  • • •

  Thirty minutes later, the Hoke’s Bluff cops were wrapping things up inside. Cary had given the whole low down about seeing J.D. in the parking lot to both sets of cops. Even though a report had been made by the apartment manager—as Cary had insisted—the report had pretty much been ignored.

  Now, Chase, Jason, Danny, and Turner all helped put up the plywood while the Hoke’s Bluff guys drank coffee and ate the cupcakes that Chloe had offered them.

  “You sure it was the J.D. kid you saw in the parking lot?” Chase Kelly asked.

  “He’s albino, it’s hard to get him confused.”

  “You’ve got a point,” Chase said. “You’re lucky all he did was run.”

  Cary drove in the last nail and pulled back. Headlights flickered down the street, and all the guys stopped and had their hands ready to go for their guns if needed.

  The car, an old Jeep, turned at the corner.

  Cary remembered what they were talking about. “That’s sort of what’s bothering me about J.D.” He voiced his concern for the first time.

  “What? That he didn’t shoot your ass?” Jason Dodd joked.

  “No. Well, sort of. I had the gun, and he saw it and just stood for a good fifteen seconds as if he didn’t care if I shot him.”

  “Maybe he knew you wouldn’t shoot an unarmed kid,” Turner said.

  “Who said he was unarmed?” Danny asked. “We know he has a gun and knows how to use it. We’re pretty sure he’s killed once and almost killed an officer.” He nodded at Cary.

  “Either way, it doesn’t make a lick of sense,” Kelly added. “If what you said is true, he’s after Ms. Sanders because he knows the cops suspect he shot you. He’s not gonna depend on the fact that you wouldn’t want justice. And if he shot you once, why not do it again?” He paused. “Were there a lot of people around and maybe he didn’t want witnesses?”

  “No. When he drove away, another car pulled up, but before that it was just us.”

  “Then he was panicked,” Dodd said.

  “He didn’t look panicked.” Cary exhaled, feeling as if he was missing something.

  “Okay, so we gotta find this guy.” Chase glanced inside the bakery through the glass that wasn’t broken. Cary followed his gaze. Chloe stood there staring out at them, a coffee pot in her hand.

  “So, you and the brunette are an item?” Chase asked, checking the plywood to make sure it was secure.

  The question rolled around Cary’s head. And knowing the guys waited, he tossed out a vague answer. “Sort of.”

  “Sort of my ass. He’s tapping it,” Danny said. “I had a date with her tonight and guess who showed up?”

  Cary groaned. “Shut the—”

  “Hey, I’m just saying.” Danny held up his hands.

  “Then don’t say it,” Cary growled.

  “You found your right arm?” Chase Kelly said.

  “What?” Cary asked.

  “Your right arm,” Jason said. “That’s how he refers to the right woman.”

  “I don’t know what I’ve found,” Cary said.

  The Hoke’s Bluff sergeant walked out. “I got it cleared. We’ll have a car drive by her apartment several times, in case these perps go looking for her.”

  Cary stared at the officer. Chloe had already agreed not to go back to her place, but this guy didn’t know that. And neither did J.D. Odds were, he’d be back and Cary would like to know these guys would catch him.

  “Drive by her place? Do you want to catch this guy or not? If you do, put a guy in front. The gang knows where she lives. They’ll come back.”

  “You don’t know that. And we can’t put a man on this twenty-four seven. We did suggest she go stay somewhere else for a few days.”

  “If you guys don’t want the case, then just let us take it!” Cary growled.

  Sergeant Beck walked off, Cary watched him go and then let out some choice words.

  “Don�
��t worry,” Chase said in low voice. “I’ve already got Joey to sit on the place. He’s working another job for Luke, so he may not get there until late. So just in case, I wouldn’t let her go back there tonight.”

  “She’s not,” Cary said, and looked in the window at Chloe chatting with her friend Sheri.

  “Bam!” Turner said and slapped him on the back.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  People were finally leaving. Chloe went to cut off the lights and when she stepped out of the bakery’s kitchen into the hall and found Cary standing there, leaning against the wall, as if waiting on her to come out. Their gazes met and held. She didn’t know what to do first. Ask him why he’d told his partner they were sleeping together, or thank him for getting his other friend to bring the plywood.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’ve been better.” She noticed he was favoring his injured leg. “You probably should get off that leg. If you want to go on home, I can get—”

  “The cops are finished. I thought we could go grab a drink somewhere and talk.”

  “Talk about what?” She held her breath.

  He looked over his shoulder as if afraid someone was listening. “Life?” He tossed the word out as if it hadn’t been what he was about to say.

  How about death?

  He started moving in. Slow and easy. Probably because of his leg, but there was something sexy, almost primal, in the way he moved. Like a big cat stalking their prey.

  Was she ready to be caught?

  Yes.

  No.

  Yes.

  He stopped a foot in front of her. And frowned. He looked to his left at the wall and she could swear she heard him mutter something.

  “What?” she asked.

  He looked back at her, ran a hand over his face before saying anything. “Have I told you how good you look in that dress?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said and then he moved a tiny bit closer. She leaned against the wall. Was that step to get more space, or to let him know she was done running? Damn, even she didn’t know. “But you might have mentioned it when we were having sex and I don’t remember that either.”