by Laura Drewry
“Good. Lock up as soon as I leave.”
He had one foot out the door when she finally found her voice again.
“Hey, Ponch?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re starting to make me think you might have been right about something.”
“Yeah? And what would that be?”
Leaning against the door frame, she crossed her arms. When he finally turned around at the bottom of the porch stairs, his brow raised in question, she smiled slowly.
“That maybe you’re not a complete asshole.”
His features softened, the dimple in his cheek teasing her but never actually making a full appearance. Instead, he raised his hands and walked backward the few steps to his car. “Lock the door.”
She did, though it took her a good long while to push herself away from it and the way his leaving made her feel.
Chapter 8
“Let’s be careful out there.”
—Sergeant Phil Esterhaus, Hill Street Blues
There was no such thing as a quiet night shift, yet between each call, Brett still made time to drive down Ellie’s street and around each of the hotels and motels in town. If this asshole Kurt was hanging around, they’d find him.
In the meantime, he’d do some digging into Kurt’s sentence and early release. Maya had identified the guy who’d ordered a dozen tulips as the same one who’d been sitting outside Ellie’s store, so at least Brett knew who he was looking for.
He still hadn’t figured out what it was about Kurt that looked familiar, but he would.
Not a word from Ellie all night. Maya texted him in the morning to say she had picked Ellie up early and taken her to the bus depot to retrieve a shipment. Half an hour later, another text, this one saying Ellie’s part-time employee, Angie, was at the store with her and all was well. So after a couple hours of sleep and something to eat, he jumped back in his truck and headed to the detachment to meet Sarge.
It wasn’t often Sarge called members in on their days off, so something must be up. A twenty-three-year veteran, Sergeant Schilling ran a pretty tight ship, expecting, and usually getting, the best out of his people. Constable Tory Hudak was already in Sarge’s office when Brett arrived.
“Good morning.”
“Closer to evening,” Hudak chuckled, shifting her chair over a little so he could pull up a second one. To look at Hudak in uniform, with her dark hair pulled back in a tight bun, her makeup at a minimum, and her “don’t bullshit me” attitude, you’d never guess she had a soft side. She did; all you had to do was mention her kids and she pretty much melted.
Sarge didn’t waste time.
“What else can you tell me about this Palmer file? Do you think this Kurt Neill fella poses an actual threat?”
“Yeah, I do.” In case Hudak thought to interrupt or disagree, Brett hurried on. “It’s starting the same way it started the first time, Sarge, and I know gut feelings don’t count for shit inside a courtroom, but I’m telling you, there’s something about this guy.”
Sarge flipped through the file on his desk. “Remind me where you met him the other day?”
“We were both in The Stalk Market, the flower store there on Main. To be honest, I didn’t even talk to him. There was just something about the way he spoke—you know, smooth, slippery. And on his way out, there was something…it was like he sneered at me. Seemed kinda weird at the time, but now that I know who he is, he probably thought he was being funny.”
“That doesn’t make him a threat, Hale, it just makes him a dick.”
“I know, and I don’t expect anyone to take this on because of my gut feeling. Ellie’s scared, though, Sarge. She’ll never admit it, but it’s there.”
“You know this how?”
Brett swallowed. “She’s a friend of a friend, and while she’s obviously never made a point of being pleasant to me—”
Hudak snorted.
“—I’ve had occasion to observe her in her normal state, and the one thing I can say for sure is that she’s not easily rattled. Last night she was trying to cover it up, but her hands were shaking, she had one of those nervous laughs going on, and she kept looking over at the door—that kind of thing.”
Sarge scanned Brett’s report again, nodding slowly.
“So you have a personal relationship with Miss Palmer?”
“No! I mean, sure, we have some of the same friends and we play on the same ball team, but—”
“That’s a relationship, Hale. Hudak, you take lead on this one.”
“Yes, Sarge.” Her response was quick, absolute.
“Sarge, listen.” Brett leaned forward a little. “Ellie’s not going to want to talk to anyone else. Hell, I still can’t believe she told me as much as she did yesterday. It’s all there in her file—the last time this happened, all she got was the runaround, and was basically ignored, so do you really think she’s going to trust any of us?”
“No, I don’t, which is why Hudak’s just as capable as you or anyone else, but it’s good to know you’re keen to be in on it.”
Oooh, that look couldn’t mean anything good.
Sarge closed the file and nodded at Hudak. “That’s all. Keep me in the loop.”
She didn’t have to say a word, and her facial muscles never so much as twitched, but when she turned to go, Brett could see it in her eyes: she was mentally dropping every curse she could think of and probably making up a few more.
Sarge waited until the door closed behind her, then folded his hands over the file on his desk. “Hale, we’re going to do something here that goes way outside the norm for us.”
“Sarge?”
“It’s going to mean you putting in a lot of overtime, and it’s going to mean changing the dynamic of your relationship with Miss Palmer.”
For the next few minutes, Brett sat openmouthed as Sarge laid it out for him, then sat back in his chair, hands folded over the top of his head.
“I can’t force you to do it, Hale, but with Yves out on medical leave, you’re the only single male we’ve got. I’m not asking you to do anything crazy, like sleep with her—for God’s sake, don’t sleep with her. Just take her out to dinner a few times, go to the movies, do whatever the hell it is young people do when they’re dating these days. Do they even call it dating anymore?”
Sarge waited for Brett to answer, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even swallow.
“And I’m not asking you to be with her every minute—just make it look like the two of you are, you know, a couple. Save all your receipts, keep track of your time, and we’ll submit it as an expense report with your overtime.”
When Brett still didn’t respond, Sarge sighed.
“Look, I’m not going to blow sunshine up your skirt here, Hale. This isn’t going to be fun, and you’re within your rights to tell me to piss off. But there’s two things we can accomplish here. Number one, we can help Hudak draw this douche bag out, build a case against him, and get him the hell off my streets, and number two, you’ll be giving us a second set of eyes on Miss Palmer, only yours will be less conspicuous than Hudak’s.”
Damn it.
“This Miss Palmer might not be a favorite around here,” Sarge went on. “Regardless, she still deserves to be treated fairly and to feel safe. Agreed?”
Brett managed to nod.
“Good. Now, listen. I can’t promise anything, because we all know the wheels creak pretty slow around this kind of thing, but when this is over, I’ll do what I can to help shuffle your transfer papers a little faster.”
What could he say? Even if it hadn’t been Ellie, he would have eventually agreed; it was his job, and on shift or not, he was still a cop.
“Good.” Sarge nodded decisively. “I don’t know how you’re going to get her on board with this, Hale, but make it work somehow, and do whatever you have to to make her understand the need for discretion. With any luck, this guy’ll turn out to be nothing more than a chickenshit piece of crap, and once he realizes she’s involved with you
, he’ll either piss off or do something to get himself forced out. The fastest way to get him to believe you two are a couple is if everyone else believes it, so we’re going to need some Oscar-worthy performances out of both of you.”
“Yes, Sarge.”
“You’re a good cop, Hale. You’re sharp, and I’ve never had cause to doubt your judgment, so for the love of God, don’t go and do something stupid.”
“Like what?”
Sergeant Schilling’s jaw twitched. “Like getting too close to her, if you catch my drift. She’s a good-looking woman and you’re both single, so you can see where things might go sideways in a hurry. The problem is, that sort of shit only ever works in Hollywood movies. In real life, it’ll just fuck up the case and your career. Instead of transferring back home, you’ll find yourself posted up in Tuktoyaktuk, and good fuckin’ luck getting out of there anytime soon.”
“Yes, Sarge.” Dazed, Brett left Sarge’s office, and before he could overthink it, he got back in his truck and drove straight to Pandora’s.
Ellie and a middle-aged woman were unpacking a stack of boxes when he arrived. Even a little pale, Ellie still looked amazing, in jeans that hugged her in all the right places and those green heels….Wow. At least four inches high, he had no idea how she managed to even stand in them, but, man, he was glad she did.
The other woman looked like she’d jumped straight through the sixties and came crashing out this side without bothering to consult a mirror: a crazy long rainbow skirt, flat leather sandals tied up with leather straps, and a long poncho that might have been made out of an old blanket. He couldn’t even begin to guess if her hair was naturally that white and ratty or if she had to work at it to make it look that…bad.
“Once we get the capris hung up,” Ellie way saying, “we can move the—”
She stopped short when she realized it was him who’d come in. The other woman followed Ellie’s gaze, then whistled.
“Well, holy Mary, Mother of God, please don’t tell us you’re here to shop for your wife.”
Laughing, Ellie gathered some of the packing material off the floor and stuffed it back in the box.
“Easy, Angie,” she said. “We don’t want to scare off the customers before they’re in the door.”
Giving the store a quick once-over, he bumped into a mannequin wearing nothing but a red bustier with matching garters and stockings. With a slow shake of his head, he steadied the figure, then backed away.
“I’m pretty sure I’m not the demographic you cater to anyway.”
“You’d be surprised,” Ellie said, smirking toward the mannequin. “Nick and Carter shop here all the time.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “I imagine they do.”
What he wouldn’t imagine was how good Ellie would look in that bustier. Nope. That would just lead to trouble, and he couldn’t afford trouble.
“Anyway. I, uh, we need to talk.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Go.” Angie was already shoving Ellie’s bag into her arms and pushing her toward the door. “It’s just about closing time anyway, so go—I’ll cash out.”
“I’m the boss around here,” Ellie protested. “Remember?”
“Bah—you do enough bossing. Go! Have fun.”
Brett nodded his thanks to the crazy-haired woman, even though Ellie continued to protest the entire way out of the store.
“Where are we going?”
“Driving.” He tossed her the keys to his truck and waved her toward the driver’s side.
“But I can’t—I have all those boxes to unpack, and Angie…”
“Seems more than capable. Let’s go.”
And that’s all she needed to know. She didn’t need to know that when Brett pulled up, he’d spied Kurt sitting in the café across the street, and she didn’t need to know that while this would absolutely count as driving time for her mandated hours, they were on a mission, too.
He expected her to adjust the seat and the mirrors—hell, it wouldn’t even have surprised him if she changed the radio station. What he didn’t expect was for her to pull off her shoes and tuck them down by his feet.
“Ruins the back of the heels when you drive in them. So where to?”
It took him a couple of seconds to blink away from the sight of her pink polished toenails wiggling over the brake pedal.
“Um, yeah. Let’s see how you do in town first. Go down Victoria and take a right on Fourth. Then we’ll head over across the tracks.”
“Yes sir.”
She pulled into traffic, such as it was, and headed for the first stop sign. In his position as instructor, he could get away with a lot of looking around, but he didn’t want to get busted looking behind them too often.
“Safe to assume you didn’t hear from Kurt after I left last night?”
“Not a peep.” With her hands at ten and two, she brought the truck to a complete stop, looked both ways, did a thorough shoulder check, then proceeded into her right-hand turn.
“What about today?”
“You mean besides the fact he’s been sitting over at the café since about three o’clock?”
Growling, Brett dragged his gaze away from the side-view mirror and slumped back against his seat. “What the hell?”
“Oh, come on, Ponch.” She grinned. “Did you really think I was just going to go about my business and not pay attention to what was happening around me?”
“I told you to call me if he showed up.”
“If he showed up at my house,” she corrected. “And if he’d shown up there, I would have called, but he didn’t. He’s sitting in a public place, not bothering anyone. I’m familiar with how this works, you know.”
And here he’d thought he’d made some headway with her yesterday.
“Apparently you aren’t,” he said, forcing his jaw to unclench. “So let’s try this again. If he shows up anywhere in your vicinity, you call. Work, home, ball field, grocery store, restaurant, bike trail, movie theater, coffee shop, church—”
“All right, all right, I get it.”
“You sure? ’Cause I can write out a list if you like.”
It wasn’t much, but there was a modicum of regret in her smile this time, and that would have been a good thing, except she was looking right at him so there was no way he could do anything but sigh and shake his head.
“You’re kind of funny when you get cranky,” she said.
“I’m not cranky. Keep your eyes on the road and watch your speed.”
“Yes sir.” They turned right off Fourth and headed back toward Main Street, then out to the highway. “So what’s the plan anyway?”
“The plan is for you to not get us killed between now and the end of this trip.”
Even as he said it, she cranked a look over her left shoulder, zipped into the passing lane, and shot past the car in front of them.
“Speed limit’s seventy through here.”
“I meant, what’s the plan for handling Kurt?”
“Seventy,” he repeated, watching the speedometer creep past eighty.
“I’m not going to sit around and wait for you guys to take care of this.”
“Seventy.”
“I did that the first time and I got written off as—”
“Slow down!”
She blinked down at the speedometer and immediately lifted her foot off the gas as a giggle bubbled out of her throat.
“Oops. Sorry. Guess it wouldn’t look very good for either of us if I got pulled over in your truck, would it?”
“No,” he muttered. “It wouldn’t. How about if we just stay in the right lane for now?”
“Okay.” She shrugged. “ ’Cept I’d almost lost him.”
“Who?”
“Kurt—isn’t that who we’re trying to get away from?”
“What the—?” Brett twisted in his seat, but the only driver he could see clearly was the old man directly behind them. Lose focus for one second
and this was what happened.
“Black four-door three cars back,” she said. When he tipped a look at her, she just shrugged. “I watch a lot of crime shows—I pick up on things.”
“That’s great, Nancy Drew, and when exactly were you planning on letting me know?”
“I just did!”
Brett resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead alternated between texting Tory and watching out his side mirror. Every once in a while he’d get a glimpse of the front right bumper of the black car, but that was it. As they neared the set of lights by the strip mall, he waved her toward the exit.
“Let’s go get a coffee.”
“I don’t drink it this late in the day; it upsets my stom—”
“Just take the damn exit…signal first…slow to thirty…slow to thirty…slow to—” Brett braced both hands against the dashboard as she took the exit. “Jeezus!”
Maybe trying to multitask with her wasn’t such a great idea.
Without a word she wheeled the truck into the giant parking lot, cranked it into an empty spot, and threw it into park.
“There,” she huffed, waving her hand toward the big brown coffee bean painted on the nearest window. “Now go get your stupid coffee—maybe get two if you need the caffeine that bad—and calm the hell down!”
He should be the one snapping at her about the way she took that corner. It wasn’t funny, so why was he laughing? And why was she looking at him like that, like she wasn’t even sure what she was looking at.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before,” she said. “Honestly, I wasn’t even sure you knew how.”
As always happened when someone took notice of him smiling or laughing, he froze, but the second he did, she frowned.
“Well, don’t stop,” she said. “It’s nice.”
“You’re a real piece of work,” he choked out. “You know that?”
“Me?” she cried. “I’m the one being nice for a change—you’re the one yelling at me and making me switch lanes like a freakin’ lunatic. Great instructor you are—next lesson, make sure you have coffee before we go out!”
From the corner of his eye, he saw the black car pull in at the far end of the parking lot. An older-model Civic by the looks of it, but too far away for Brett to get a read on the plate.