by Liliana Hart
Travis saw our movement and looked up from his computer screen, signaling for us to go ahead and come inside. Savage opened the door for me and I went in, unsure of how we were going to handle this from here on out. Because I knew no matter what lies we’d been telling, I wasn’t going to be anyone’s pirate wench this afternoon.
I didn’t notice the TV screens mounted in each corner of the room until Savage had come in behind me and effectively cut off all means of my escape. I made an inhuman sound in the back of my throat and wondered if there would ever be anything more awkward than this particular moment. And that was saying something, because I’d had a lot of awkward moments over the years.
Every one of the screens was showing the filming that was happening below decks.
It was like a car wreck. I couldn’t look away. But I also couldn’t look at Travis Elias either because I’m not comfortable watching porn with men I’ve never met before.
I could feel Savage’s chest shaking with laughter behind me and I elbowed him in the gut. This whole thing was his fault. Or maybe it was my fault because I’d had the bright idea to keep Rosemarie out of prison. But I felt better blaming him anyway. The only saving grace about the whole situation was that the sound was turned off. But the pirate orgy would be forever burned into my corneas.
“Sorry to keep you two waiting,” Travis said, hanging up his phone and tossing it on the table. “You the new talent?”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but no. I’m Agent Savage with the FBI. This is Addison Holmes.”
“Uh huh,” he said. “Nice act. But we’re shooting a period piece here. Can you say Arrrgh?” He did a double take when he looked at me and said, “You look kind of familiar. Have we met before?”
“No. Most definitely not.”
“It’ll come to me. I never forget a face. Well, take off your clothes and let me see what I have to work with.”
“I’m going to pass,” Savage said, moving his badge a little closer so Travis could inspect it. “We’d like to talk to you about the murder of Priscilla Loveshack.”
“You’re the Feds for real? That fucker Tim is supposed to be guarding the boat, and he just lets the FBI walk on and roam around. For fuck’s sake. He’s fired.”
“To be fair he does wear a patch,” I said. “Maybe it was just hard to tell when he looked at us. And I guess Agent Savage makes a pretty convincing porn star. Unemployment is pretty high around here. Maybe Tim should keep his job.”
Savage and Travis were both looking at me like I’d grown a second head, so I pressed my lips together and smiled.
“I remember where I’ve seen you now. You’re that bitch that busted Johnny Sakko a couple months back. I saw your picture in the paper.”
“Why don’t we talk about blackmail and Priscilla Loveshack instead of Johnny Sakko,” Savage said. “He’s doing a long stretch of time and isn’t worth the conversation.”
One of the coolest things I’d learned by watching law enforcement and their interrogation techniques was that most people would hang themselves with their own rope if given the chance. Travis was no exception to that rule.
“Blackmail,” he said, huffing out a breath in disgust. “That fucking bitch. She thought she was so smart gathering information about all of us. And for the record, I did not know that girl was under eighteen. She wanted to be an actress. I was just giving her a chance to succeed. And there was Priscilla, taping the whole fucking thing. The right amount of money buys a lot of silence, so the girl wasn’t the problem. But Priscilla was determined to take me for every last penny I had until she’d gotten enough to retire from the business and open that damn shop of hers. Not like it was anything to write home about. Everybody buys their dildos online nowadays anyway.
“So she tapped out everyone she could get her nasty little claws into until she had enough money squirreled away to go out on her own. Luckily her husband isn’t the same caliber of asshole as she was, so he kept his fingers in the business that made them both stars. Some people have no loyalty. You know what I’m saying?”
*
It wasn’t a bad afternoon’s work for finding out who really killed Priscilla Loveshack. If Detective Jacoby had done even a fraction of the work we had he’d probably already have the real killer in custody.
Savage drove to Nick’s house to pick up the dogs and we waited for several minutes for Rosemarie and the dogs to have a proper reunion.
“That’s just not right,” my mother said. “I’ve never understood people who let dogs lick them right in the mouth. All dogs do is lick their buttholes, other dog buttholes, or toilet water. You might as well eat a steaming pile of poop and call it a day.”
Savage smiled tightly and I pressed my finger to my twitching eyelid. We loaded the dogs in the back and then headed down to Whiskey Bayou to drop them both off at my mom’s house. Poor Vince.
“Thank you, Jesus,” I whispered after they’d left us with a flurry of goodbyes and hugs.
It was pitch dark outside, my temples were throbbing, and I needed a bottle of wine. Badly. I looked at Savage closely and figured he was probably feeling much the same way.
“I must have it bad,” Savage said. “I can’t imagine any other reason for the day that I just spent. And if I ever have to do it again I think I’ll just eat a bullet and be done with it. My eyes need bleach and my ears need cotton.”
“I have those days too. But you held up well. Especially when they started describing everything they’d seen on set and asked if you’d ever done any of that stuff. You have a talent for giving answers without actually saying anything.”
“I’m FBI, babe. That’s my specialty. Did you know your eye is twitching?”
“Yep. For almost three hours now. I’ve been timing it. The record is six, so I’m thinking now that there’s some distance it’ll go away.”
“Families are supposed to make you feel that way. There’s a reason I moved a thousand miles away.”
“I’ve been considering it. I’m thinking Hawaii. Or maybe Iceland. I’ve never been there before.”
We returned back to Nick’s in mostly comfortable silence. The lights were on in the house, and I was surprised to see Nick’s SUV parked in the driveway. It was the first night he’d been home at a regular time all week.
“It’s a cool house,” Savage said.
We could see straight through the windows from the front of the house to the backyard, where the pool lights illuminated the water and reflected off the icy drizzle as it fell. The front door opened and Nick came out to stand on the porch—barefoot and in nothing but jeans and a white undershirt—as if it weren’t freezing outside. He held a bottle of beer in his hand and his face was unreadable.
A prickle of unease went down my spine as he and Savage locked glances, and I hurried to gather my stuff.
“Thanks for the ride and the help,” I said, pushing open the car door. Icy wind hit me in the face and I scooted out of the truck as gracefully as my knee would allow. “I’d say it was fun and we should do it again, but I’m with you. I’d rather eat a bullet than go through that again. You’re a good sport, Savage. Even though your middle name is Earl.”
He grinned and grimaced at the same time. “I had no idea Rosemarie would guess it on the first try like that. Took me off guard.”
“She says she’s psychic.”
“You could add three letters to that word and it has a whole other meaning.”
I laughed and slammed the car door shut and Savage gave a two-finger salute before driving away. I was taking my time getting up to the porch, my limp more pronounced than it had been all day, and I hadn’t quite gotten the courage to look at Nick. But when I got to the porch it turned out I needn’t any courage after all. He’d already gone back inside and left me there alone.
Chapter Seventeen
Thursday
To say that things were awkward between Nick and me would be an understatement of epic proportions. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint where thi
ngs had started to go wrong between lamp breaking sex the other morning and last night, but the churning in my gut told me it had a lot to do with Savage coming back to town.
Nick woke early and headed straight into the shower without so much as a grunt of acknowledgment, so I got up and padded downstairs to put on the coffee. The swelling in my knee had gone down quite a bit, and I could mostly walk on it without limping. I was also feeling a little more in control of my emotions, so I figured if I could get the squishy feeling to leave my stomach over whatever was bothering Nick then it would probably shape up to be a pretty good day.
I put on the coffee and then started taking out things to make pancakes. My mother had always said that the way to get a man to see reason was to feed him. But considering what a terrible cook she was that only proved to me how much my dad really did love my mother. Because he ate every blessed meal she ever put in front of his face.
I heard Nick’s footsteps padding around upstairs and I turned on the griddle. I’d watched him get dressed enough in the mornings to know his routine—undershirt, socks, and underwear from the top drawer. Then dress shirt from the closet and buttoned all the way up. Trousers pulled on and zipped. Utility belt and duty rig next. And then right before he left the bedroom he’d grab a tie from the closet and leave it loose around his neck. Every time I saw that tie I lost my mind and wanted to tackle him to the floor so I could have my wicked way with him.
I looked at the clock on the microwave and frowned. He was taking longer than normal and I didn’t hear him moving around anymore. He was avoiding me, which meant he was really pissed. And I wasn’t going to stand for it. We were going to get to the root of the problem if I had to lay down in the middle of the driveway to keep him from leaving for work.
I turned off the griddle and headed back toward the stairs, but Nick was already halfway down them. He took the last couple at once and skidded to a stop in his socked feet. I’d never seen him look like he was—his face dark with anger and his eyes cold as ice chips.
I stopped in my tracks and gripped the back of the sofa for support. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
And then I saw it. The white plastic applicator he held in his hand.
“What the hell is this? It’s positive. Are you pregnant? Jesus, Addison.”
A couple of months back Kate had thought she might be pregnant, so in a show of solidarity I’d picked up two pregnancy tests and taken one with her so she wouldn’t have to do it alone.
We peed on the strips and then put them back in the brown paper bag they’d come in because neither of us had had the courage to look, and we decided maybe drinking a margarita or two first was the best way to build up that courage.
Kate had taken the paper bag back home with her and she said she’d call me when she was ready to see the results. I’d honestly forgotten about the whole darned thing until she’d called and flipped my entire life upside down.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” she’d said.
“Which do you want first?”
“The good news.”
“I’m not pregnant. I got my period this morning and my test was negative when I looked in the bag. I think the stress of the job is messing with my hormones.”
“That’s good news?”
“I think so. I talked it over with Mike and we’re going to wait another year or so before starting a family. This was a timely event. We’ll be a little more careful with the birth control from now on.”
“So what’s the bad news?” I asked.
“Your test was positive.”
I can’t even describe how I’d felt as that little bomb was dropped in my lap. Terror was the first thought. I didn’t know anything about being a mother. I didn’t know how to grow a small person inside my body and then make sure they survived once they got out. I didn’t even have a pet.
My second thought was embarrassment because I lived in a small town in the south. And pregnant unmarried women were still whispered about like they were the devil’s candy, hell bent on enticing all the men they encountered with their wicked ways.
My third thought was the one that was most confusing. Somewhere deep inside of me was excitement. I don’t know if it was because I was past thirty and it turned out my ovaries weren’t dried up like prunes after all. Or just because I was a woman and there was some sense of accomplishment and thrill at the idea of being able to carry another human inside me. But that excitement had been there no matter how hard I’d tried to quash it.
Those feelings were all short lived however. It turns out buying pregnancy tests out of the bargain bin isn’t always the best of ideas. I had no idea they could expire and give false results. But that’s just what had happened.
I’m not sure why I’d kept the test, but I’d tossed the paper bag into the corner shelf of the closet and had forgotten it existed.
My mouth went dry as Nick stared me down, waiting for an answer, and I licked my lips and decided to handle this the way I normally handle things. With a false sense of bravado and defensiveness.
“I beg your pardon?” I asked, brow raised. “I don’t appreciate being spoken to that way.” The angrier I got the thicker the Georgia in my voice became. I was pretty damned angry. And holy cow did I sound like my mother.
I’d once heard a woman describe Nick Dempsey as being sexy enough to make her lady parts regenerate even though she’d had a full hysterectomy. I could sympathize. I had all my lady parts intact and every time Nick walked by I felt my ovaries clench with anticipation. My ovaries had gotten me into a lot of trouble lately.
“I asked you a question,” he said. “What the hell is this?” He held up the white plastic stick with a delicate grasp as if it were a grenade instead of a pregnancy test.
Sweat beaded on his brow and his white, button down shirt sat askew on his broad shoulders. His hair was mussed where he’d run his fingers through it repeatedly. I was only slightly concerned about the bilious pallor of his skin.
My eyes narrowed and I wouldn’t have been surprised if steam escaped my ears and the top of my head popped open like the whistle on a steam engine. So maybe he’d been taken a little off guard by finding the test hidden in a paper bag and shoved in the corner of the closet. What the hell was he doing snooping through my stuff anyway?
“Were you going to show me this or were you going to keep it a secret for the next nine months?”
“If I was going to show you I wouldn’t have hidden it in the closet,” I yelled. I refrained from rolling my eyes. But just barely.
The green tinge of his face disappeared and red flushed his cheeks. The little vein in his forehead bulged out and I took a step backward. I recognized the look. I was either about to get yelled at or have the best sex of my life. But because of my excellent proficiency in context clues, I was betting it wasn’t the latter.
I bit my bottom lip and felt tears well in my eyes. This was not good. No woman wanted to see a reaction like the one Nick currently had when faced with the possibility of bringing children into the world together. My anger was quickly elevating from steam engine mad to nuclear levels, and if I didn’t get out of the house no judge could possibly hold me responsible for what might happen.
“Answer the fucking question,” he said, each word slow and separated. “Are you pregnant?”
I sucked in a deep breath and felt it burn in my lungs. I don’t even remember my hand reaching out to grab the little crystal dish on the sofa table that held potpourri. But before I knew it the dish was sailing through the air, red tinged pieces of wood and cinnamon sticks flying in all directions. It hit Nick right in the middle of the forehead with a thunk that made me cringe. His eyes glazed and then rolled into the back of his head before he toppled to the floor.
What can I say? Hormones are a bitch.
I ran upstairs and put on my standard casualwear of yoga pants and an oversized sweater. I slid my feet into my sneakers and put on a black baseball cap, and then ran back downstairs as f
ast as my knee would let me.
Nick groaned on the floor. “What the hell?” He rubbed his forehead and I burst into tears.
“I’m not pregnant you big dummy. In case you haven’t noticed I’ve had PMS all week.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed.”
I hiccupped through another sob and turned on my heel out the door. I didn’t even stop to put on my coat. I just grabbed it and my purse and ran to the car. Oh, man, was I in trouble. I’d just assaulted a cop. Not that he didn’t deserve it. The idiot. But still—I did feel bad about it. I didn’t usually resort to violence.
I got on the phone before I could talk myself out of anything. Normally I’d call Kate in a situation like this. She was my best friend after all. But she was at work—like I should’ve been—and I knew she was swamped. She would’ve dropped everything if I’d asked her to, which was exactly why I didn’t.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Rosemarie warbled a little unsteadily.
I frowned into the phone and double-checked to make sure I’d dialed the right number.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Right as rain. I’ve decided to make lemonade with these prison lemons. I’m going to keep positive and be happy if I have to draw a smile on like the Joker.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“I might’ve poured a little vodka in my cornflakes this morning. It turns out I didn’t have any lemons for my lemonade.” She hiccupped once and I burst into laughter. What a sad and bizarre pair we were.
“I was thinking it might be a good morning for some retail therapy.”
“Amen, sister. I can find some accessories to go with my orange jumpsuit.”
“I’m headed your way now. Don’t eat any more cereal.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Don’t think that because I’m a little tipsy that I didn’t notice your eyes were swollen and your nose was red as Rudolph,” Rosemarie said a short time later.