by Laura Drewry
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m 10-98,” he said, as though that should mean something to her. “On meal break.”
He’d hardly squeezed through the opening before she reached around him to pull the door closed, then seemed to freeze in place.
“Give me a minute,” she said, pushing her hair back and cringing at the blanket. “I’ll just run up and get dressed.”
“Don’t,” he said. “I can’t stay long.”
“But I’m…” What was she going to tell him? That sitting there in her pajamas and glasses, with his blanket wrapped around her, made her feel…not just vulnerable…scared. Nervous. Stupid.
Right. If he didn’t think she was batshit crazy before, that would pretty much seal the deal. Maybe if she pretended she was dressed, that she had her full armor on, she’d be fine. Uh-huh.
“Maya’s asleep,” she whispered. “So do you mind if we sit down here?”
“It’s fine.” He waited until she’d set herself up on one of the steps with her back against the wall, legs stretched out; then he took the one below, facing her. “You okay?”
She tried to nod, she really did, but had to stop when a “no” slipped off her tongue.
“I hate this,” she murmured. “I hate that he has the power to make me feel like this.”
“That’s all he wants, Ell. He wants you to feel powerless; don’t let him. Don’t give him that.”
“I’m not giving him anything. He’s just taking it, and I feel like there’s nothing I can do to stop him—that’s what I hate the most.” She forced herself to sit up a little to at least make it look like she wasn’t a total wimp. “I should have been on guard for something like that; I knew he’d ordered tulips from Maya. But those were white ones, not black…where does someone even get black tulips?…And Maya said he never went in to pick them up anyway, so…”
“Probably the smartest thing he’s done since he got here,” Brett said. “He’d have been taking his life in his hands going back there.”
It was kind of funny only because it was true. Maya didn’t get mad very often, but when she did…look out. She’d proven that well enough when she’d finally decided she’d had enough of Dickhead’s cheating. Not a dish was left unbroken, and she’d dumped the entire contents of the fridge on the floor, unscrewed the plug on the water bed, and taken a shiny new nine-iron to the giant flatscreen before embedding the club in the computer monitor.
Neither Ellie nor Brett spoke for a while, and each passing second made her twitchier. She didn’t know if it was still because of the break-in or if it was from having him sit so close to her when she wasn’t braced for it.
After a while, she released the grip on her blanket long enough to shove her hair out of her face and adjust her glasses, then took the safe route.
“So, Poncherello, what’s next? He’s not stupid enough to leave prints behind; he didn’t the last time.”
Brett started to say something, then stopped and nodded absently before changing the subject. “Your mom’s back tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I was hoping this would be over before she got back, but…What if—”
“Don’t. Does she know about Kurt?”
Ellie nodded. “I called her the other night but I didn’t go into detail—just said that he was here and that he’d been by the store.”
“I called the guy from the alarm company I use, and he’s going to go over to your place tomorrow and install a system.” He didn’t even give her time to respond. “It’s already set up, so you just need to be there at noon to let him in. Great time to be without your license, by the way.”
“I’m happy to take it back whenever you want to give it to me, dipwad.” She smiled, weak as it was, but he didn’t smile back. “Oh, come on, Ponch, not even a smirk? I’ll admit, he scared the shit out of me tonight, but you’re the one who just said I shouldn’t give him power. If I start hiding every second of the day, isn’t that what I’m doing? Besides, walking gives me the chance to be enlightened by Pastor Pete.”
Finally a hint of a smile. “Good ol’ Pete. The last few weeks, every time I pick him up, he keeps repeating the same verse—something about the devil lurking around like a noisy beast.”
“That’s the one he used on me tonight, too. It was kind of creepy, now that I think about it, because in his version, the devil’s looking for someone to eat, and then he called me ‘food girl.’ ” Shuddering, she rearranged the blanket a little, tugging it back up over her knees, but it just slid off again. “Why do you guys pick him up so much? He’s not hurting anyone, so why can’t he just stay there?”
“What are you talking about?” He took hold of the edge of the blanket, set it over her legs, then rested his arm over it to keep it in place.
“Pastor Pete,” she said, blinking down at his arm. “You-you guys haul him away at least once a week.”
“Well, yeah. We take him to the detachment for a shower and a hot meal.”
“Oh.” Burying her face in the blanket, she snorted out a short laugh. “And see, all this time I’ve been thinking you were charging him with vagrancy or something.”
“Nice. Good to know you still have such a high opinion of us.” At least he sort of smiled at her embarrassment. “You should go get some sleep.”
“Yeah,” she drawled out. “That’s not going so well for me tonight.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Absolutely—you can haul your armed and Kevlared self upstairs to stand guard over me all night.” She swung her legs over the side of the stair, to his far side, stood up, and tried to smile. “No? Then how about getting back out there and kicking some bad-guy ass for me?”
It took him a couple of seconds, but he finally got to his feet, adjusted his belt, then shook his head slowly. “Can I tell you something?”
“Anything except how The Killing ends. I binged the first three seasons last month, but I’m pacing myself through the last season because the thought of saying goodbye to Holder…” She opened her eyes wide. “I mean…wow.”
He tried to hide it, but she caught the teasing spark of a smile in his eyes for a second; then it was gone just as fast.
“When the call came in tonight, and I heard your address…” He looked down at the floor, his jaw twisted a little to the side, before he finally blinked back up at her. “Scared the shit out of me, too.”
He pushed the door open just wide enough to squeeze out and, without looking back, threw his standard goodbye back at her:
“Lock it behind me.”
Chapter 12
“Crunch Berries make me a better crime fighter.”
—Detective Stephen Holder, The Killing
The first time Kurt called, all he managed to get out before Ellie hung up on him was that he’d heard about her flower delivery. She’d expected the calls to start, because that’s what he’d done in Toronto, but it was like watching a horror movie: you know something bad’s coming, you brace for it, but when it happens, you still jump.
Tory had already gone over this with her. If he was using a prepaid phone, which he no doubt was, the calls would be next to impossible to track, so it was best not to engage with him. As instructed, Ellie logged each call into her notebook, writing down what he said word for word, and then passed it all on to Tory.
“ ‘Your new boyfriend looks like a pussy’?” Tory sighed. “Real original. ‘Excellent choice of wine last night.’ And this one—‘See you soon’—he’s just trying to freak you out.”
Ellie refused to admit out loud that it was working. This was escalating a lot faster than it had the first time, and the restraining order wasn’t any comfort at all. Tory assured her that they had enough to bring him in for questioning, but they had to find him first, and no one had seen him since the day Tory talked to him outside Ellie’s store.
On Tuesday night, for the first time since they’d started meeting up, a couple of years back, Ellie didn’t go to Chalker’s. She
left Gail locked inside the house, with the new alarm set, watching NCIS, and headed straight to Brett’s with a large meat lover’s and a six-pack.
She wasn’t even sure he’d be home, but if he was, she didn’t want to give him the chance to blow her off, so she just walked up, knocked on his door, and waited. The second he opened the door, she almost turned around and walked straight back to her…Oh, right, she didn’t have her car, and the cab was long gone.
Damn it!
“Ell.”
Standing there in nothing but a pair of shorts with a towel wrapped around his neck and sweat glistening against his biceps…against that tattoo…and down his abs…Ooooh boy. She didn’t even know where to look, so for some stupid reason she ended up staring at the middle of his chest.
Great. Good job. She’d meant to surprise him, not make it totally awkward.
“Hi. Uh, wow, um, I thought…um, well, maybe…It’s Tuesday.”
“All day, yeah. You want to come in?”
“No. I mean, yeah, in. Okay.” By some kind of miracle, she managed to make it through the door of the condo without tripping over herself and landing flat on her face.
“If you tell me that’s a meat lover’s with double cheese, I might have to marry you right here, right now.”
“Ha!” Whatever that sound was, it wasn’t a laugh. A bark, maybe? A couple of swallows later, she finally found something that sounded a little more like her own voice. “Then I guess this thing’ll never work out between us, Ponch. It’s a meat lover’s but only regular cheese.”
“Hmm.” He pretended to ponder that for a second before finally giving in. “Beggars can’t be choosers, right?”
He led her to the kitchen, then slid a tall glass across the table toward her and pointed at the beer.
“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be…five minutes.”
And then he was gone, taking the stairs two at a time and leaving Ellie to stare after him, unblinking, for a long time. From somewhere up those stairs, a shower turned on, which meant he was…
Oh, no, do not go there! No. Think about something else; look at something else. Whatever it took to get the image of the half-naked tattooed hottie out of her mind.
He’s a cop, and he has a job to do. You’re his job. He has to do you. Ugh!
Oh God. He was going to come back down those stairs smelling all fresh and Ivory soap–ish, and then what was she going to do? And since when was Ivory soap sexy? No. Just no.
Flipping open the lid of the pizza box, she waved her hands back and forth over the steam to disperse some of the aroma around the room.
And just in time, because the shower had shut off and a few seconds later, his footsteps were pounding back down the stairs.
“So what’s up?” There, that was better: his bottom half covered up with a pair of damn fine-looking jeans, and his top half covered by a plain white T-shirt. Well, most of the top half, anyway. Both arms, including most of that tattoo, were still bare, but she could cope with that.
Maybe. Would it be weird if she just reached out and touched his arm, just maybe right there where the vine in the tattoo started?
“Ellie?”
“Oh, uh, it’s Tuesday,” she said.
“Yeah, you mentioned that already.” He pulled a couple of plates out of the cupboard and pointed at the box. “Shall we?”
“I meant, it’s Tuesday the twenty-first.”
His hand froze for about half a second before he reached in and dragged a piece onto his plate.
“And I just thought it might be nice to have a friendly face around tonight.” She finally managed a normal-sounding laugh. “I doubt either one of us ever thought I’d offer to be that friendly face, but…”
She turned to get a piece of pizza, but Brett’s hand was there first, pushing the plate out of her grip and pulling her into a hug.
“Oh,” she gasped over a laugh. “Okay.”
It was infinitely better hugging him when he wasn’t wearing Kevlar, though in truth, that had its own kind of coolness to it, too.
His arms tightened for a few seconds, then relaxed, but before he released her, he pushed her hair back and kissed her forehead.
“Thanks. That’s, uh…” He smiled, though it was almost painful to watch him force it. “Yeah.”
Ellie waved it away with a napkin as they pulled their chairs in around the table. “Yeah, sure. What are super-awesome fake girlfriends for, right?”
There: that smile might be small and it might be weak, but at least it wasn’t forced. He was halfway through his slice before he stopped, swallowed, and wiped his mouth.
“But it’s Tuesday.”
“Yes, it is,” she smirked. “And I’m pretty sure we’ve covered that already, so if you’re trying to dazzle me with your brilliance, you’re going to have to try a little harder, Ponch.”
“Shouldn’t you be down at Chalker’s with the rest of them? The way Nick and Carter talk, it sounds like weekly attendance is mandatory. Didn’t Maya even show up the night her divorce went through?”
“Well, yes, of course she did. But that was something worth celebrating, so she had to show up.”
“Has anyone ever missed a week?”
“Mmmmm, nope. If someone’s away, that’s different, and there’s a couple weeks over Christmas where we don’t do it. Other than that…” She pretended to hem and haw for a second. “Nope, it’s pretty much mandatory.”
“Then what are you doing here, Ell?” His expression was awfully serious, considering she was trying to make light of it.
“Well, here’s the thing. You’re a guy, and generally speaking, guys are pretty stupid about things like this, so I’m guessing Larry and Moe probably don’t even know what today is, do they?”
When he frowned in confusion, Ellie rolled her eyes at him.
“Larry and Moe? The other two Stooges…Nick and Carter. Ah, now he gets it. Do they know?”
“No.”
“See? Guys just don’t get how this is supposed to work. Your buddies don’t know and your folks are away, so I thought to myself, Self, should the dipwad be alone tonight or should his super-awesome fake girlfriend share her knowledge of how to get through tough times? So here I am, sharing my knowledge.”
When his brow lifted in question, she pointed to the pizza box.
“Right there—that’s the secret to life. It’s gotten me through some pretty awful times, it never judges, it never disappoints. And if you’ve got a beer to go with it, that’s just icing on the cake. Or the cheese on the pepperoni, as the case may be.”
“But won’t the others be pissed if you don’t show up?”
“Are you kidding me?” Ellie lifted her beer and took a long swig. “We’ve got them so convinced we’re ‘us’ that Jayne nearly peed her pants when I told her I was coming here instead. The three of them are probably sitting there fighting over who gets to be godmother to our firstborn.”
“Wow. Then I hate to be the one to burst their godmother bubble, but…” His expression never cracked, but there was a tilt in his voice. “No double cheese? It’ll never work.”
“Your loss is Dickie’s gain, I guess. I hear he’s looking for a new wife, and I bet he’s not nearly as picky about his cheese.”
“To you and Dickie, then.” Brett lifted his beer in salute. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”
“Thank you. Now tell me how it is that your last super-awesome girlfriend never taught you the powers of the pizza.”
“Yeah.” He winced. “Pizza was never really Kerri’s thing. She was more an Indian, Moroccan, or spicy Thai kind of girl.”
“All good choices, sure.” Ellie nodded as she lifted her slice a little higher. “But none of those have the soothing effects you can find in a good slice of pizza, am I right?”
“You’re right.”
“Yes, I am.” She pulled a piece of pepperoni off her slice and popped it into her mouth. “So how does a pizza kind of guy meet a spicy Thai k
ind of girl?”
Over another slice, Brett told her all about the car accident that brought him and Kerri together and how he hadn’t known there was such a thing as feeling “too” safe.
“Oh my God,” Ellie laughed. “You were a hoverer!”
“No, I wasn’t.” But then he chuckled and shrugged. “Okay, yeah, maybe a little bit.”
“She still should have been honest with you right from the start, instead of letting you think everything was fine and moving all the way out here with her.” When silence was the only thing she got back, Ellie stared back at him wide-eyed. “No!”
A slow, guilty grin spread across his face. “Yeah, she might have mentioned she wasn’t super happy a time or two before we moved out here.”
“No!” Howling, Ellie pushed her glass away so she didn’t knock it off the table. “You’re such a loser! She told you, and you still followed her out here? What were you thinking?”
“Apparently, I wasn’t,” he laughed. The sound reverberated through the kitchen, settling over Ellie and warming her from the inside out. “What does that even mean, anyway? What’s the difference between safe and too safe?”
Ellie pulled her feet up on the edge of her chair and wrapped her arms around her knees.
“ ‘Safe’ is when she knows you’re there for her, not necessarily physically there but ‘there,’ you know? Available when she wants to talk about anything from, I don’t now, the state of the financial markets to the jade earrings she just sold. It’s when she knows that even though you might be super pissed at each other, you’re still going to rip the head off the first person who calls her a bitch. It’s when you make her laugh at things that shouldn’t be funny and when you smile at her with that little something you only ever show her.”
She should have left it there, but the words just kept spilling out: “It’s when you bring her bike back all covered in reflective strips.”
Silence hung between them for a while, until Brett finally shrugged.