Burn, Baby, Burn

by R. J. Blain

  Perkins, who’d offered to help me settle the puppy, frowned, fetched his phone, and tapped on the screen. “Huh. Tiffany isn’t home, either. Give me a sec. I’ll check the garage. She said she wanted the car for something today.”

  “I really need to monitor the house,” I muttered.

  “An alarm system might do Bailey some—” Perkins blinked. “Oh, shit.”

  “That’s not what I want to hear, Perkins.”

  “Why is your car parked in my garage?”

  My eyes widened. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  When Tiffany Perkins took my wife anywhere, trouble happened. Alone, my Calamity Queen could terrify years off my life. Tiffany collected misdemeanors for the fun of it, viewing community service hours as a way of getting out of the house for a good cause when she wasn’t playing a mad scientist with a research fetish. “Please tell me Tiffany is still working on her book.”

  When Tiffany worked on a book, she took my wife out for coffee, which made everyone happy. She also limited her misdemeanors to minor mischief that made for good stories at the station.

  “All three are with her publisher, her latest paper is out for peer review, and her next lecture isn’t until late January.”

  Oh no. “If my car is in your garage, and our wives are not where we expect, what do you think that means?”

  Perkins laughed, and it was a strained, tired sound. “We’ve been had, Sam. Your vixen of a wife tricked us both with her texts to keep us busy, and then they bailed out of town in my car.”

  I shook my head. “Oh, no. Tiffany’s too smart for that. She ditched your car somewhere safe but hidden, likely with a neighbor. But, seeing as she’s Tiffany, she forgot you have cameras in your garage.” My wife playing me like a piano stunned me into silence. Anxious, blurt-things Bailey tiptoed around always afraid the tides of her good fortune would change. “Why did our wives skip town?”

  “Why would two women skip town?”

  We spent a long time thinking about it.

  “Snow sucks?” I suggested.

  “It’s fucking cold,” he agreed.

  “Boredom.”

  Perkins’s expression turned thoughtful. “Burnout or exhaustion.”

  I grimaced at that one. “Bailey’s been really tired lately.”

  “Tiffany is easily bored, and she really likes Bailey. If Bailey’s been tired, she’d want to cheer her up. Tiffany knows about the promotion, and she understands Bailey is going to be up to her eyeballs learning how to be a cop.”

  “And then add in that she’s being dumped into a vat of boiling oil being partnered with me, and it’s a recipe for disaster. And more exhaustion.”

  “There’s the motive,” Perkins announced.

  “The list sent this morning. Do you think it’s a distraction ploy, clues, or what?”

  “Distraction ploy.”

  I thought about it, and I also thought about Bailey’s insecurities, which left her incapable of doing something without her seeking my approval. “Clues,” I countered. “Where in the United States would you get a monster margarita?”

  I smiled at the most obvious answer.

  “They ran to fucking Las Vegas?” Perkins groaned and bowed his head, running his hands through his hair. “This is a nightmare. Obviously, I was petrified by your cousin, and I’m trapped in a petrification-induced nightmare.”

  “Bailey’s going to arrive at the strip, see the showgirls, and faint from mortification,” I predicted. When she did, I’d be in position to catch her, and I’d enjoy carrying her off to do with as I pleased.

  “They’re not going to make it to Vegas because my idiot wife is going to realize how fucking innocent Bailey is, take her to the nearest dive, and get her ass arrested again. Again, Sam. You hear me? Again.” Perkins groaned. “Last time, she put a full box of chocolates down her shirt and told the cashier to call her S’mores.”

  Coughing so I wouldn’t laugh, I twisted in my seat to check on Sunny. Bailey’s puppy slept on the back seat without a care in the world. “Bailey called me from the station in tears, Perkins. It took her twenty minutes to stop laughing long enough to explain she was paying Tiffany’s bail. I still don’t know if she had hysterics, found the whole thing funny, or didn’t know how to handle the situation, thus becoming so frustrated she cried because killing people is illegal.”

  “There’s no way Bailey would cry at a station unless she’s laughing.”

  “Get her angry or frustrated enough, and she sobs.” It made me a terrible husband, but I adored when her emotions got the better of her, good or bad. “But you’re likely right. Tiffany would’ve been busy begging them not to let her off too lightly. That would make Bailey laugh.”

  “Chocolate was involved, too.”

  “The last thing Bailey needs is extra sugar. I’ve finally gotten her diet somewhat healthy.”

  “Monster margaritas have a lot of sugar. She’s going to be a sight to behold.”

  “Where do you think our wives went first?”

  Perkins snickered. “If Bailey is driving, nowhere fast.”

  “As I haven’t gotten any calls about homicides, pyromaniac unicorns, or mass destruction, let’s assume your wife is driving.”

  Perkins sucked in a breath, and he jerked his head up. “Oh, God. No. This can’t be happening.”

  “Spill,” I ordered.

  He groaned. “Atlantic City. Tiffany would want to warm Bailey up for the insanity of Vegas. Bailey turns red if you’re shirtless in public. Tiffany would take Bailey to Atlantic City to acclimate her and score a new misdemeanor on her rap sheet.”

  I gave that some thought, and I found I didn’t mind the situation nearly as much as I should have. “Think we should give them a head start? We can play dumb.” I chuckled at the thought of Bailey storming Las Vegas. “While accidental, it’s perfect timing. If Bailey and Tiffany are road tripping, it’ll be a lot harder for the Dover hive to find them.”

  “It’s good for our wives—and us—to get out of the house for a while.”

  “My car likes your garage. It just told me so. We should get a rental. We need a vacation. Right? We need a vacation, Arthur.” Using his first name would indicate we were truly off duty, the kind of off duty where we wouldn’t be fielding even emergency calls.

  I’d view my rank as a police chief as temporary unemployment with a few perks if I needed to call in for some backup to protect my wife.

  “Definitely. And since we’re excellent husbands, we should pick up a few gifts for our wives on the way.” Perkins grinned, and he rubbed his hands together. “We’ve obviously neglected them most cruelly, and thus they are in need of a reward.”

  I laughed. “This explains a lot. My great-grandfather must have known she was skipping town and wanted to fuck with me. He loves screwing with us mortals, especially the ones he helped bring into existence. It gives him an excuse to visit and create trouble.”

  “I’m rather surprised you’re not panicking yet. I also understand why he got that prescription. You get edgy at the end of your shift when you haven’t seen Bailey all day. After a few days, you’re going to be an anxious mess.”

  “I’m not panicking yet because she’s safest on the move,” I admitted.

  Perkins nodded. “Tiffany’s with her. We’ll have a call by midnight about them, guaranteed. We’ll be able to track them from law enforcement pulling Tiff’s records—”

  My phone rang, and when I didn’t recognize the number, I answered, “Chief Quinn speaking.”

  “Quinn,” my wife purred in my ear.

  Normal humans couldn’t purr, but my wife had developed a purring habit around the same time she’d started getting a better grasp on being a fire-breathing unicorn. I figured it had something to do with her special brand of magic, and I loved the sound.

  When she purred, she was happy.

  “Why hello there. Get arrested already?”

  “No.” Bailey stopped purring, but I heard a hint o
f her amusement in her faked sigh. “I didn’t get arrested.”

  “Well, that’s something. What has my beautiful wife been doing?”

  “Watching Tiffany the Bitch Perkins bra whip a cop. Watching as in she’s doing it. Right now. It’s a bra from Victoria’s Secret, and I want one.”

  Okay. I loved when my wife wanted new lingerie. She took me with her, and she kept staring at me with hopeful, innocent eyes every time she spotted one she liked, which roused my demonic side to an almost frightening degree.

  She got whatever lingerie she wanted, and I had a great deal of fun destroying most of it.

  I thought the sacrifices well worth the money.

  However, she rarely admitted she wanted new lingerie, especially not when someone might hear her. “Have you been drinking?”

  When my wife got drunk—or high off excessive sugar—trouble happened. So much trouble. She didn’t need more than a sip or two for the trouble to start.

  “No, not yet. I might if she doesn’t stop whipping police officers with her bra.” Bailey whimpered. “We were about to leave, but Tiffany remembered some law here letting her get only a misdemeanor for smacking a cop with her bra.”

  “Tiffany is assaulting a police officer with a what?”

  Perkins’s eyes widened.

  “It’s a brassault.” My wife giggled. “And she’s dancing on a table.”

  “On a table.” I fought my urge to laugh and failed miserably. When I recovered enough to speak, I asked, “Do you need to be rescued?”

  “No, not precisely. Yet.”

  “What do you need?” She wouldn’t have called me unless she needed something—or wanted me to rescue her.

  “A favor,” she admitted.

  Uh oh. Favors could mean anything. “What do you need?”

  “Assurance this outing with Tiffany won’t end with a divorce.”

  As always, whenever Bailey’s insecurities got the best of her, she reduced me to an emotional mess of a man, and I wanted nothing more than to hold her and convince her everything was fine. I smiled, and I marveled I’d been able to breathe before she’d steamrolled her way into my life. “Bailey, you have nothing to worry about. Your man repellant is with you, and what happened the last time you met a rowdy incubus?”

  “I stabbed him with my horn,” she dutifully replied.

  “Do you have your pills with you?” I knew she always carried a stash of pixie dust and transformatives in her bra, the best grade the CDC would legally allow her to cart around without additional permits.

  We never spoke of that stash, and we pretended it didn’t exist.

  As such, my question was about the other stashes in the house, so numerous I’d stopped bothering to count them.

  We had a special permit that covered the entire house for a wide assortment of controlled substances thanks to her special brand of magic.

  “I stole the living room stashes.”

  “Stashes?” I tried to remember how many stashes we had kept in the living room. The last time I’d checked, she’d even put plastic baggies of pills inside the lamp shades. All of them.

  “Well, I grabbed one, forgot I’d grabbed it, and then the next thing I knew, all of the stashes were in my purse of holding. Tiffany wanted to leave, and I didn’t have time to put the extras back.”

  Every time I thought I couldn’t love her any more than I already did, she opened her mouth and started babbling, often saying the first thing to pop into her pretty head. “You only need to take one pill unless it’s an emergency, and try to limit it to no more than five if really needed, okay?”

  After five pills, strange things started to happen around Bailey, and my grandfathers usually showed up to fix the resulting mess—or prevent a calamity.

  “I’ll be careful with them,” she promised.

  “Take pictures, have fun, and don’t worry about the bail. If she can’t negotiate her community service hours, or if either of you need legal advice, give me a call. When will you be home?”

  “Uhm, about that.”

  “What is it, Bailey?”

  “Merry Christmas!” She hung up.

  I blinked and stared at my phone. “Hey, Perkins?”

  “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “Where in the United States is bra whipping a cop only a misdemeanor?”

  “Atlantic City. Cops’ wives, especially from here, head there when the going gets rough, and for some reason, someone thought it was a good idea to write it into the legal code so it’d be less of a hassle for their husbands in the aftermath. I’m pretty sure most of the married guys in our precinct have made a run to Atlantic City to retrieve their wives following such an incident. The local cops love it, and at most, she’ll get a few hours of service.”

  I blinked, and upon thinking about it, realized he was right. Every few months, one of my cops did have to make an unexpected run to Atlantic City on personal business.

  No one had told me why, however.

  “Is this your wife’s first time hitting Atlantic City?”

  Perkins sighed. “She’s bra whipping a cop in Atlantic City, isn’t she?”

  “While on a table. Bailey called it a brassault and wanted to be reassured.”

  “About what?”

  “She wanted assurances her outing with Tiffany wouldn’t end with a divorce.” I laughed. “Then she wished me a merry Christmas and hung up.”

  “Do you want to head to Atlantic City tonight?”

  “No. It can wait until morning. Let’s let our ladies have their fun for tonight. We can pay the Dover hive a visit tomorrow before tailing them.”

  “We?” Perkins sighed. “Can I sit in the car?”

  Considering how much Perkins hated petrification, it impressed me he’d limited his request to just staying in the car. “Sure. Hey, do you like kids?”

  “You’re not wiping out that hive and taking the kids.”

  Perkins knew me well. Too well. “Why not?”

  “It’s wrong. That’s why.”

  I scowled. “No. Threatening my bride is wrong.”

  “You’re not wiping out that hive and taking the kids unless they go after Bailey or Tiffany first. Then and only then may you wipe out the hive and take the kids.”

  I could accept those terms. “Well shit, Perkins. How’s that fair?”

  “It’s fair to them.”

  He presented a very good point. “Bailey’s worth at least a hundred times their starting offer. At least. They deserve it for insulting her.”

  “I shouldn’t have to tell you this, Quinn, but murder is bad.”

  “I’d kill them quickly. I should be given credit for being merciful. What do you think Bailey will do to them if she finds out about this?”

  Perkins sighed and bowed his head. “I need to tell her that murder is bad, too.”

  I snickered. “I’ll pay good money to watch you try to convince the pyromaniac, meat-eating unicorn of that.”

  “How is it that I became the adult supervision of this relationship?”

  “That’s a really good question.”

  Chapter Five

  Bailey

  What had I done? Why had I called Quinn? I stared at my new phone, astonished I’d babbled so much without spilling the beans about our road trip. His reminder about our mystical ball and chain helped.

  He knew I’d never betray him.

  He just had no idea I’d run away from home for more than a few hours.

  He’d forgive me. Probably. Hopefully. Maybe. At least he’d forgive me enough he wouldn’t seek a divorce for running off with his cop’s wife.

  Perkette whipped her bra at the cops, and the idiots laughed. Granted, I couldn’t blame them. I hadn’t dubbed Perkette her name because of her breasts, but the shoe fit a lot better than I’d anticipated. I had no idea how her breasts defied gravity, but they did a damned good job of it.

  I assumed magic was somehow involved.

  Sighing, I considered how best to
put an end to her behavior. “Perkette, you’re married. You wouldn’t cheat on Perky because you know I’d shove my horn up your ass. Put your damned clothes on and stop resisting arrest.”

  “I wouldn’t call it resisting. I’m entertaining. Look! They’re entertained.” Perkette hopped off the table. “Heaven forbid you drive too late at night. All right, all right, I’ll get dressed.”

  “Behave, Perkette. I mean it. You land anything other than a misdemeanor, and not only will I never make you coffee again, I won’t renew my pixie dust license.”

  “You play dirty.”

  I smiled. “I’ve only just begun. Clothes back on, Perkette.”

  She even put her bra back on first, much to my amazement. While she dressed, I counted cops. After six, I figured they could spare one if I asked really nicely. “Excuse me, but I don’t suppose one of you could accompany me? I’ve never been here before, and snails outrun me when I drive in the snow. Frankly, it’d probably be faster to walk.”

  “You can follow me, ma’am,” the young cop who’d arrived to the scene first replied, and his eagerness confirmed my suspicion he was fresh from schooling and ready to prove he could handle any task.

  The new cops were always so cute in their enthusiasm.

  A cop ripe for retirement sighed, and I pegged him as the poor bastard saddled with keeping an eye on the green recruit.

  “Thank you. Do you want to wait for them?” I glanced at Perkette, who was taking her time adjusting her clothes, meticulously checking her purse, and charming the other cops. If she’d been the type, she probably could’ve talked them all out of their clothes, too. Fortunately for everyone, she wasn’t.

  Perkette was a lot of things, but she worshipped the ground Perky walked on. She just would rather chew glass and rusty nails before admitting it. When I thought about it, we were birds of a feather.

  The pair chuckled, and the young one shook his head. “No. We’ll go ahead and meet them at the station. Don’t drive often in the snow?”

  “Not really. My husband is the one who usually drives, or I take a cab. He keeps threatening to make me take stunt car driver lessons.” I shrugged. “I just don’t want to be in an accident.”