As I started backing toward the door, she froze, staring at the gun. “Don’t open the door.”
I peeked through the peephole and recognized the two nimrods I had beaten up. They’d since taken over my and Smitty’s cases and made a point of engaging me in spurious dialogue over every misspelled word in a report. “Great!” I grumbled as I unfastened the security chain and opened the door. “What are you guys doing here?”
Ponytail, also known as Dan McClowski, pushed past me and into my apartment, followed closely by his flabby-assed, chronically pink partner, Alvin Wilson. I was about to demand that they get out of my apartment forthwith when out of the corner of my eye, I noted that the room was empty where Riley Medeiros had been only moments before. The white curtain billowed out at that moment and the loud siren of a car alarm sounded through the broken window.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled. I had barely taken one step, however, before I found myself flying forward. My gun clattered across the room as I hit the floor with a crash.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” someone said from behind me, and I was yanked up by my hair and shirt to look into beady gray eyes. “Now you weren’t going to just run out on me, were you?”
I was too shocked to struggle. First a woman I barely knew had broken into my apartment, and now in the span of about five minutes, two detectives I had assaulted a few weeks ago had just ambushed me, obviously not on official business.
“I’m going to have both of your badges,” I warned.
“Oh you are, are you?” Ponytail sneered. “Well, let’s see. Who do you think they’re going to believe, a murderer who was trying to save her own life, or the two upstanding detectives who volunteered to bring her in?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I managed to say, even though guilt clawed at my throat, desperate to emerge by way of a confession. “I’m not a murderer.”
“That’s not what we heard.” Ponytail tightened his grip on my shirt. “Does the name Harrison Canniff mean anything to you?”
I guess he and Flabby Ass both heard the breath wheeze from between my gritted teeth. They exchanged a smug look.
“Give it up, Everett,” Flabby Ass said. “We’ve got one of your fingerprints on the inside of the plastic bag that was wrapped around the dead guy’s face. Now that just seems strange to me.”
“Bag, what plastic bag?” This had to be a joke or some ploy to get me to admit guilt. There had been no bag, I was sure of it.
“It’s called evidence.” Ponytail pulled his gun, and for the first time in my career, I knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a cop’s weapon. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.
“Is this because I hurt your little male pride? Is that what this is about?”
“Haven’t you been listening, bitch? You’re wanted for questioning in the murder and mutilation of one Harrison Canniff. And you know what? We might want to know your whereabouts when your partner suddenly ran his car off the highway. You’ve got a lot to hide. What happened, were you trying to keep him quiet?”
“You know, man, you may have a point there,” Flabby Ass chimed in. He took a hanky from his coat pocket and used it to pick up my gun. “Hey, I bet this has all the prints we need. And lookie here, it’s loaded, too.”
“Look, cut the macho bullshit and take me to the captain so I can get this mess straightened out,” I demanded. I was scared, but I was also angry. The fact that they brought up Canniff horrified me, but the fact that they were trying to frame me for something was even scarier. Never mind the fact that I actually did it.
“Man, stop stalling and let’s get this over with,” Flabby-ass Alvin Wilson said. “I told my wife I’d be home in a half hour.”
They both grinned at me and in that instant I realized that I was in serious danger. I only knew one way to fight. Dirty.
Blood spurted from Ponytail’s mouth when the top of my head slammed into his chin. I followed up with what I hoped would be a debilitating strike to the larynx. I swung around to go after Wilson, but I was hit from behind.
As I dropped to the floor, Ponytail yelled at his partner, “How are we going to explain a bruise on her head? No other damage. That was the instruction. Jesus.”
A part of me wanted to just lie there and let them kill me. Hell, I was dead anyway. I had been since the day I’d killed that Canniff guy. I just wanted it all to end. I closed my eyes and waited for the loud report, pain, or peaceful oblivion. Instead, I heard a shout and a loud thud. I opened my eyes to see Riley, her face contorted with rage, standing with her foot on the back of Wilson’s neck. Ponytail was lying on his stomach, his arm trapped under his body at an awkward angle.
“Don’t kill him,” I said weakly. Not because I cared about the sniveling idiot on the floor, but because Riley didn’t deserve to feel like I did.
She took her foot off his neck and, with a single kick to his temple, knocked him out cold. When she knelt next to me, I was so confused I didn’t know whether to hug her or try to run away. Since I was in no condition to run, I chose to pull her to me fiercely. “I’m so tired of getting my ass kicked,” I said to keep from crying.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled into my hair. Her much larger body trembled as I held her.
“For what?” I asked, knowing in my heart that she had nothing to do with this whole affair, and that somehow I’d failed to see that.
Finally she seemed to gain control of her body, and with some effort got to her feet. I struggled to mine unassisted. She stared down at the unconscious detective. A dark spot clouded his temple where she had booted him.
I touched her arm. “What made you come back?”
“Come back?” Her voice sounded disoriented and fuzzy.
“Yeah, after the way I treated you.”
“I never left. I was hiding on the side of the bed.”
“You were hiding? Why didn’t you help me sooner? Damn it, I could have been killed!” In my anger, I had lost sight of the fact that I had accused her of being one of the bad guys only moments before. “You know, you sure do have a knack for showing up right when I need you,” I said under my breath.
She didn’t reply, so I tapped her on her shoulder. “You’re not going to respond?”
“To what?”
“Damn it, are you deaf or something? I asked you how you manage to be around whenever I’m getting attacked.”
A fierce frown blossomed on her brow. “I’m just trying to help you.” She started for the front door and looked back at me as if to see what my decision was going to be. “Coming?”
I looked down at the two men on the floor of my apartment, then back into her tempestuous blue eyes. I had made my living on gut instinct, and it had seldom led me astray. If I had to make a choice about whether to trust the two on the floor or the woman who had put them there, I didn’t even have to connect with my instincts. It was a no-brainer.
“Okay, let me get dressed,” I told her numbly.
“No. We have to go now.” She propelled me toward the door. “They’ve probably called for backup.”
“Wait! Bud!” I didn’t care what she said, Bud was coming with me. I ran back into the apartment and spotted his orange contraption partially hidden under a pile of my dirty clothes. I scooped him and the clothes up and we ran out of my apartment, leaving the door open and the two detectives lying in the middle of the floor.
I was screwed, I thought, as we jumped into Riley’s old Land Cruiser. A dead suspect. My fingerprints on evidence. Resisting arrest. Assaulting cops. How much worse could it get?
*
I closed my eyes and rolled over between Riley’s jersey sheets, inhaling her scent. It seemed so familiar already. She really was something else. I was only sorry that I hadn’t noticed her when I could have made something out of our connection. Even a good friendship wouldn’t be so bad, although maybe Riley only thought she was straight because she didn’t know any better. It was too late to think about the possibilities now. As of t
he present moment, I had no misconceptions about my future. My life, as I knew it, was over, and Riley had so much ahead of her. That is, if she didn’t have anything to do with whoever was after me.
I ran through the explanations I’d heard as we drove to the theater. Stacy had sent her to my place after hearing something about a 6AD on North Third at my apartment. She thought a 6AD was the code for picking up a felon. This detail made my stomach churn. A 6F was a simple felony code. A 6AD told officers approaching the scene that they would more than likely draw fire. The sons of bitches were setting me up.
Then there was the photo. Riley claimed she found it in the alley with my keys the night I was attacked and had been so preoccupied with nursing me and getting my stuff that she didn’t get around to telling me. This seemed possible. There was only one problem with the story. I didn’t drop that photo in the alley, which meant someone else had it, presumably one of my attackers. How did a couple of street thugs come by a picture of me? That picture in particular?
I wondered why Riley wasn’t back in northern California. We hadn’t got that far in our Q&A. The question preyed on me for another hour or so as I tried to get enough sleep to clear my head so I could leave her place. Riley didn’t deserve the trouble I was in for. No one did. I was a wanted person. On the run, like the countless men and women I had hunted over the past eight years.
I stared into the darkness and became gradually aware of a noise I could not ignore. Paranoia immediately had me wondering all over again what Riley’s agenda was. For a few minutes I lay wide-awake, allowing myself to zero in on the sound. Heavy breathing? I got out of bed and found the LAPD T-shirt that was bundled with the clothing I’d grabbed in the escape from my apartment. It was long enough to give me some cover. I didn’t want to show Riley my meager goods if I was caught wandering around. I crept through the living area to the spare room she’d chosen rather than share a bed with me. The labored breathing grew louder as I reached the partially closed door. Jumpy and ready to fight again if I had to, I peeked in.
Riley sat on a weight bench in a pair of form-fitting gray cotton shorts and matching half-top. She had her eyes closed and a rather impressive-looking weight poised above, and slightly behind her back. A bruise shadowed the flesh above her eye. As she steadily raised then lowered the weight, every muscle in her body tensed and released. Steady breaths hissed from her tightly clenched jaw. Her stomach muscles clenched each time she raised the barbell above her head. A stream of sweat trickled down her temple to her neck, then to her chest, only to disappear tantalizingly between her breasts.
I shook myself from my trance and backed away before I was caught and had to explain myself. Talk about horrible timing. I’d always assumed that my sex drive was nil-to-none. Most of the sexual encounters I did have—there hadn’t been many—were not initiated by me. Girlfriends was a magazine I scanned, but I never really had one to call my own, and that was just fine by me.
Never in my life, even in my rambunctious teens, had I experienced a flash of pure lust like the one that struck me while I watched Riley Medeiros sweat.
I’d killed someone. I was wanted for questioning by the LAPD, also my employer. The two jackasses assigned to my case were trying to frame me for a murder I did commit. I was beyond stressed, but my libido had suddenly decided this was the time for full-blown reactivation, and to top it all off, the comeback was for a straight woman.
Tears threatened, but I pushed them away. It wouldn’t do any good to cry. I would just have to deal with this logically. My first thought was to call my father, but I was sure the men hunting me would expect that. As was his habit, Dad would try to help me clean up the mess I had gotten myself into. No, no matter what, I couldn’t get him involved, not this time. This was not stealing a bag of chips, or a pair of earrings for a high school sweetheart. This was murder, and not even the great Clive Everett could get me out of this one.
I’d already decided I had to leave here as soon as possible. I didn’t want Riley in any more trouble than she already was. I hoped the jokers at my apartment wouldn’t identify her and trace her to Secrets, but I wasn’t counting on it. Loneliness crept in as I contemplated my options. I’d often wondered about the life of a criminal on the run: always afraid that someone might recognize you; never being able to contact loved ones or friends, or create new ones, for that matter. My head hurt and I retreated to the kitchen, lamely imagining I could find comfort in a glass of milk or something.
I had to stop myself from gasping out loud as I opened the refrigerator and stared at the disaster area inside. My God, where was the six-pack of Coke? The gallon of water seemed to laugh at me from its haughty position on the top shelf. I would have accepted Diet Coke, even, but just plain water? Unless she had some Kool-Aid, I was in big trouble. And where was the whole milk I craved? I looked disdainfully at the bottle of nonfat milk. The water shared its shelf with a blender containing some noxious-looking substance. Her deli tray was equally disturbing. She didn’t even have any Kraft singles or dry salami, for goodness sakes.
I opened the pristine white drawer at the bottom of her refrigerator marked “vegetables” and gasped at the greenery spilling out of it. I cautiously inspected the drawer and found a bunch of carrots, ears of corn, a cucumber, a zucchini, a squash, and an eggplant. An eggplant? Who in their right mind buys a purple…anything to put into their mouth? What do you do with an eggplant, anyway? And what was with all the phallic-looking veggies? There was no evidence of ranch dressing to dip all this rabbit food into. The fruit drawer was another discouraging experience. I kept Fruit Wrinkles candy and yogurt in mine. Riley had cantaloupe, strawberries, blackberries, and apples. I should say three types of apples, to be precise. Don’t most people just get the red ones? I always thought the green ones weren’t ripe yet. Smacking my lips in disgust, I gave up on the fridge and opened the freezer in quest of ice cream.
Two large Ziploc bags of chicken breasts occupied center stage. No sausage, no TV dinners, no ground beef, and no ice cream. Like everything else about Riley, her food choices were inexplicable.
Disheartened, I closed the refrigerator door and started toward the sleeping area when I heard her voice. I froze in the middle of the dark, nautical living space. Riley’s door was wide open and she had her back to me, talking on the phone. She had taken off her shoes and was clad only in her workout shorts and top. I was able to admire her back and shoulders for a few moments, unnoticed. I was so involved with my ardent perusal that I almost missed her next words.
“I’m not sure how long I’ll be, but I’ll call you, okay?”
I was right. I was putting her out by being there. Someone was expecting her. I tried to ignore the heaviness in my chest, but failed. I told myself that it was just pure and simple fear of loneliness, nothing as complicated as jealousy. To feel that way now would be just plain ludicrous.
“Yeeess, Brad, I won’t forget them.” I could tell by her tone that Brad was someone that she cared for a great deal. “I love you. Bye.”
I thought about backing into the bathroom but decided to let her think I had only just got out of bed. I waited for a moment for her to sense that I was standing behind her, but she didn’t. Undoubtedly she had been so engrossed in her conversation with Brad that she hadn’t heard me at all. I almost laughed at myself, situation notwithstanding. I wouldn’t know what to do with Riley Medeiros even if I had her. That’s right, folks, I can talk the talk, but I can’t walk the walk, and I’ll be the first to admit it.
I cleared my throat and, receiving no response, said, “Hi,” a bit too loudly.
She jumped, as most people would when complete idiots stand behind them yelling “Hi.” Turning sharply around, she said, “Oh, I didn’t hear you.”
“Sorry.” I took a few steps into the light from her doorway.
She continued to stare at me for a moment, as if she wanted to say something else but thought better of it. I wondered briefly if she was going offer up who was on the ot
her end of that loving phone call I had just overheard. Snap out of it, Everett. Stop acting like you have a license to stick your nose in her business. Feeling foolish, I looked around the small room and noted a pair of black nylon basketball shorts, a T-shirt that said “Body by Me,” and a pair of orange flip-flops. All were laid neatly on the bed.
“Are these for me?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She set her glass of water down and approached me, a worried frown on her face. “I thought I would wash some of the clothes you brought. They were sort of dirty.”
I nodded, embarrassed and grateful at the same time.
“You okay?”
“Yeah…considering.” I tried to smile.
“I thought you’d be asleep. Did I wake you?”
“No, I had stuff on my mind.” I didn’t mention that it was pretty strange to get up and find her working out in the middle of the night. “I just wanted to come and thank you for helping me.” My God, am I really talking? Words were spilling out of my mouth without my consent. “I want to repay you if I can, but I need to get myself out of trouble first.”
She said solemnly, “It was my pleasure.”
You know what? People say that all the time—“my pleasure.” But I’ve never once thought that anyone really meant it. In this case, I believed her. For whatever reason, Riley Medeiros wanted to help me. I backed away from her. She flicked on a light and followed me to the sleeping platform like we were just friends chatting.
“I’m going to shower now. Will you be here when I come back out?” she asked cautiously.
I guessed she’d read my mind and thought I was going to run off without saying good-bye. I should do us both the favor, I thought cynically. But what I said was, “Yeah, I’ll be here.”
She smiled. “Try to get some sleep. You’re safe here.”
My knees hit the back of the bed, and I all but slumped down in exhaustion brought on by relief. It is a trying thing to be alone in the world. And now, thanks to Riley, I didn’t feel so alone. It was too bad that I couldn’t accept whatever she was offering.
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