“Miss,” he said. He narrowed his eyes at her just slightly, thinking her a rude American, and turned his gaze to Wilson. “Wilson, my boy, how are things in the financial circle?”
Midnight felt Rick’s hand on her arm, and she moved away with him. He led her over to a staircase of chrome and glass and turned her to face him.
“What was that all about?” he whispered harshly.
“Excuse me?” Midnight said, surprised that he seemed to be attacking her.
“You could have at least been polite.”
“Polite? Gee, I’m sorry if I don’t know all the English etiquette.”
“You seemed to do fine at our wedding,” Rick retorted, still whispering.
“Yeah, well at our wedding you seemed to have no problem pronouncing my first name either,” Midnight said calmly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Midnight stared at him in disbelief. Did he really not realize he was acting totally out of character? “Never mind,” she said finally, sighing. “I don’t want to get into a big nasty fight right off the bat. I’m sorry I didn’t do whatever I was supposed to, okay?”
“Fine,” Rick said, and started walking away. Midnight trailed after him, feeling very out of place and angry that she did. Walking to the “sitting room,” she stood at the threshold and looked around. The room had cathedral, stained-glass ceilings, the setting sun making the colors dance. Finally, she had found something positive about the house. When she looked around at the people in the room, she saw Rick talking to a woman about her height with short dark hair and very pale skin. She’s got to be English, Midnight thought, then chided her negative attitude again. She strolled over toward Rick, though he didn’t seem to realize she was there. He was very animated as he talked with the woman. Midnight stood behind and off to the right of them, feeling once again totally out of place. Finally, Rick turned and looked at her.
“Midnight,” he said, reaching out to her. Midnight looked at his hand, then at him, and stepped forward. She didn’t take his hand, and he dropped it, practically glowering at her. He looked at the woman he had been talking to, and she raised an eyebrow at him as if to say, “Her?” Rick smiled and shrugged, then said, “Sheila, this is Midnight. Midnight, meet Sheila.”
Sheila looked at Midnight and Midnight stared back.
“Hello,” Sheila said finally. “Richard has told me about you and your daughter. She sounds lovely.” Her accent was as polished and upper crust as her father’s, and Midnight had to hold down the urge to laugh.
She felt like she was in some awful B movie, where the little pauper girl gets to go to the palace and meet the king and queen. God, I don’t want to be here, she thought. But she smiled wanly at the other woman. She heard a bell tinkling in the foyer, and an English voice rang out, announcing that dinner was served. Again Midnight had to hold back her urge to laugh; this was absolutely unreal. She looked at Rick and saw that he and Sheila were talking again, so she went toward the dining room to find Deborah. She found her talking to Wilson and a dark-haired older woman that Midnight thought had to be Mrs. Theland. Deborah introduced her.
“Angela, this is Midnight, Richard’s wife,” she said, putting her hand companionably on Midnight’s arm.
“Midnight?” Angela Theland repeated. Midnight was surprised that her voice was devoid of any accent whatsoever. “What an interesting name.” Midnight didn’t hear any insult in the comment, but she wasn’t sure that rich people just didn’t cover rudeness better than others.
She seemed very nice, but Midnight didn’t really bother to think about it much, knowing that odds were good she’d never see the woman again. Mrs. Theland showed Midnight where she was to be seated; she was not pleased to note that she was only five chairs away from ol’ stuff-shirt Theland. She could already hear him regaling his subjects with some tale. As she tuned in to the conversation, on the off chance that it might be something interesting, she heard Theland say, “Oh, yes, something else my tax dollars will have to pay for, so they’ll raise my bloody taxes again—for what? So some bureaucrat can save some gang member or help some homeless kids. What do they really do anyway? It has got to cost less to allow these misguided children their freedoms than it does to try and stop them!” His voice was indignant and infuriating at the same time. Midnight tried for approximately a fraction of a second to keep her mouth shut, but she just couldn’t manage it. She began to shake her head, as if the man were a schoolchild to be scolded. David Theland didn’t take kindly to that kind of mockery. “You have a different opinion, young lady?” he asked, raising a cynical brow.
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Theland, I do,” Midnight said, taking on an instructional tone. “The approximate cost of gang violence is five hundred and forty million dollars in Los Angeles, according to the LAPD, so yes, they do cost us all money, and no, it wouldn’t be cheaper to allow them free rein, sir. These aren’t misguided children. Some of them are cold-blooded killers who’ll blow you away for ten bucks to buy some crack.”
“And how is it you know all of this?” Theland said rudely.
“I’m a police officer, that’s how I know, and I work with these kids every day. I know what they’re capable of, and they’re out there right now building their little drug empires, and unless we stop them, they’ll just take over.” Midnight spoke with the conviction of fifteen years of struggle, but Theland didn’t hear any of it. He was too busy being a pompous ass.
“Well, Officer… Debenshire, is—”
“That’s Lieutenant Chevalier,” Midnight said, emphasizing her rank.
“Ah, yes,” Theland said, not missing a beat. “Well, Lieutenant, maybe then you can explain to me why we don’t just legalize these drugs that you police persons claim are so detrimental to society. It seems to me that narcotics are a victimless crime, and the police should just keep their noses out of our business.”
The people at the table were all staring now, nodding their heads in agreement with David Theland’s statement. Some were looking at Midnight for her response.
Midnight grinned sardonically. These liberals, she thought. “Victimless crime?” she said sarcastically. “Oh yes, drugs are a victimless crime. Try telling that to the crack babies that are addicted at the moment of birth, or try telling the women and children who are victims of abuse due to the effects of drugs.” Midnight saw that Rick had come into the room and was glowering at her. She knew he was going to be all-time pissed off at her for this, but she wasn’t about to stop now and let that pumped-up peacock win the battle. Still standing, she motioned to take in the whole table of people. “What about all the people killed every year by addicts looking to make a score? These misguided children, as you call them, who’ll steal a little old lady’s false teeth if they think they can hawk them for enough to score a dime bag?”
She moved to stand next to Mrs. Theland, who was watching the exchange as avidly as the rest of the party. “And would you still say that drugs are a victimless crime, Mr. Theland, if your wife or your daughter was raped and murdered by some hype who had just shot up and gotten rid of all those inhibitions that us normal law-abiding citizens have? Would drugs be a victimless crime then?” She looked at the people standing and sitting around the table, then back at Mr. Theland. “And for your information, Mr. Theland, you pay us those hard-earned tax dollars to protect you.” She pursed her lips and tilted her head at him, as if sizing him up. “Even if it means protecting you from yourselves.” The whole room started talking, and Midnight knew she had made an impression. She also knew she’d never be invited back to the Thelands’ again, and boy, wasn’t that the icing on the cake! Rick was standing next to her now—he grabbed her arm with a grip of steel.
“What in the hell are you doing?” he whispered harshly.
Midnight pulled her arm out of his grasp, eyeing him contemptuously for not supporting her, and said, “Leaving.”
She turned and walked out of the room. Rick followed her, but then she heard
a female voice with an English accent that she knew wasn’t Deborah’s call him back. Midnight couldn’t believe it—he actually stopped and turned around. Son of a bitch, she thought. She couldn’t believe he was actually going to let her leave. He probably figures I’ll calm down and come crawling back. Midnight lifted an eyebrow in reflection. Then he doesn’t know me very well.
She got all the way to the front door before she realized Rick had the keys to the car.
“Shit,” Midnight said out loud, shocking the stuffy butler standing near the door. She gave him a somewhat acerbic smile, as if the word had slipped out, then proceeded to cuss her way out the front door and down the steps. Thankfully she had kept her purse with her, and in the tiny little useless thing she had managed to stuff her cell phone. Thanking her maker, she pulled it out and dialed Joe’s number. After the third ring Joe answered, his voice groggy from sleep.
“Hello?”
“Joe, it’s me.”
“Who else would it be?” he asked, with his usual humor.
“Look, I need you, now.”
“I could say—”
Midnight cut him off. “Don’t go there.”
Joe chuckled, then sighed. “Where and why? Do I get a why this time?”
“Ten fifty-five Palace Place, and I’ll give you the why when you get here. Just hurry up.” Midnight was starting to feel the chill of the ocean air; she had left her coat with the butler. She sighed. I’m not even going to try for it. She sat down on the low marble fence and waited for Joe, like a sad, dejected debutante with an attitude. She hoped silently that Rick would come looking for her, but he never did, and that really irritated her. By the time Joe arrived she had knotted herself up pretty good; she was almost sputtering.
Joe took note of her condition and meekly asked if she wanted him to stop at a local bar first, before taking her home.
“No,” she said sullenly, “just take me home.”
“Bad party?” he asked, lightening his tone. “No good games?”
“Oh yeah, great games!” Midnight exclaimed, blowing her breath out in a whoosh. “I think they called it ‘Let’s Spin Up the Cop and See if She’ll Blow.’”
“Oops,” Joe said, starting to get the picture. “And did she?” He knew the answer even as he asked it.
“Duh,” Midnight said simply. She rested her head back against the seat. “Why did I even agree to go to this thing? I knew it was a bad idea, but Rick said we should and I didn’t want to fight…” She trailed off dejectedly, knowing they were going to fight now anyway.
“Rick’s not usually into those gigs anyway—what’s with him?” Joe asked, remembering all the times he and Rick had been forced to go to debutante parties, how they both had bitched the whole time and shot out of them like rockets as soon as it was socially acceptable to do so.
Midnight scrubbed at her face. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice muted by her hands. Then she looked at Joe. “Deborah wanted us to go. Maybe it was because of her—maybe he thought it would be nice for her, and maybe that’s why I agreed to it. I didn’t want to get into another fight about it, because that seems to be my whole life with him lately.” Again she leaned back against the seat. “I have such a headache.”
“You two are having problems too?” Joe asked, surprised. He knew Midnight had been very busy as of late, but he didn’t know it had started causing them marital trouble. “What’s goin’ on?”
Midnight shook her head. “I don’t know, really. It just seems like lately Rick’s been all over me about work, that I work too much and I’m not home with Mikeyla, and all that crap. I don’t know what to do. I mean, you know how much momentum FORS has been gaining, and if I try to put the brakes on now, the impact could be disastrous. I certainly don’t want all these agencies starting their own units not knowing all the drawbacks and provisions that need to be made. I mean, if they didn’t check a member’s background just right, if they had just one infiltration, recruited the wrong guy…” Her mind whirled with the endless chances of disaster. “If one cop got killed, Joe, all because I didn’t want to have a fight with my husband about traveling…” She shook her head; she couldn’t let that happen.
Joe considered what she had said for a moment. “Okay.” He glanced over at her. “But what if it does come down to a choice? What if it comes down to Rick or FORS, or setting up some new program and Rick—what’re you gonna do?”
Midnight gave him a sharp look, then her face clouded with concern. Joe knew Rick better than anyone, maybe even better than her. “Do you think it would come to that? Is he really that possessive?”
Joe shrugged. “He can be. It’s never really been over a woman before, because before you, all his relationships were kept very casual. But now…” He shrugged again. “You’re different, you mean everything to him, and maybe he can’t see past that. I don’t know what he’ll do.”
“Do you think he’d let it come to divorce?”
“Maybe.”
“But if he loves me so much, and if I’m so important to him…”
Joe shook his head. “Night, Rick is a ‘my way or no way’ kind of guy.” He saw Midnight grinning, nodding. “And,” he added, “if you think I was bad, you ain’t seen nothin’. You don’t realize how far Rick will go to get his way if he really wants something. But I don’t honestly think he believes that it would go that far. His ego’s probably telling him that if you think you’ll lose him then you’ll back off on the trips.”
Again Midnight nodded. “I think you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” Joe said smugly. “Trick here is, that like I’ve tried to tell him before, he hasn’t dealt with any woman like you before. He’s never had a woman get the better of him, or even really try.”
“I thought he knew who I was when he married me, Joe,” Midnight said angrily.
“And I’ll wager that you thought you knew him, didn’t you?”
“Got me there,” Midnight said. Joe nodded, smirking. “Okay, so enough about my problems. What happened with you and Randy? Are you still being an asshole?”
Joe laughed. Only Midnight would go straight to the heart of such a touchy subject for him. “Thanks, Night, I love you too,” he said, still smiling. He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess I am a little bit, but mostly it’s Randy.” Midnight glanced at him cynically. “Well, it is! She’s not talking to me.”
“Serves you right,” Midnight said. Joe had told her what he had said to Randy, and Midnight had told him that if he’d said that to her she would have knocked his block off.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Joe said, his expression indicating that he had heard it before. “I’m a male chauvinist pig, and I don’t deserve to live, and if you were married to me you’d have shot me a long time ago,” he recited as if by rote, rolling his eyes. They were parked in front of Midnight and Rick’s house now, and Joe had turned off the engine.
“Damn straight,” Midnight said, grinning. “But I love you anyway. So are you going to try to make up, or are you just going to wait her out?”
Joe looked recalcitrant. “I guess I could try and make up, but I’m not gonna kiss up. She was wrong a little bit.”
“Yeah, God forbid she didn’t ask your permission first.”
“Alright already, I get it,” he said, nodding like a schoolboy.
“Good.” Midnight leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “And thank you for coming to my rescue.” She went to open the car door—his hand on her arm stopped her.
“You gonna be okay?” he asked, concern on his face.
“Oh yeah,” Midnight said, waving away his worries with her hand. “I’m goin’ to bed, and as far as I’m concerned, the asshole can sleep on the couch.”
Joe laughed, knowing Midnight was just ornery enough to follow through. “May be where I end up one of these days—on your couch, that is.”
Midnight laughed as she got out of the car, leaning down to look at him. “Anytime, honey. Anytime.” She closed t
he door and waved as she walked up to the house. Joe watched until she was safely inside then waited an extra few minutes, until he saw her wave from the living room window. The incident over three years ago, when Rick had left her at her house without waiting the extra time and she had been attacked, had made both Joe and Rick paranoid about dropping her off. Midnight had argued with them about it for a while, but had long since given up. Joe drove home, thinking all the while about what he was going to do about Randy.
****
When Joe returned home, he noted that Randy had gone to bed while he’d been gone; she’d been in the living room when he came out of their bedroom. He knew she was mad at him, but he didn’t know exactly what to do about it. He didn’t want her to think he condoned the idea of her becoming a police officer, because he didn’t, and he knew he really couldn’t. He also didn’t want her to stay mad at him. Joe realized how much Randy had become such an integral part of his life. Before Randy he’d had work, and sometimes he and Midnight had been a thing, but basically it was always connected to work. Randy was something separate, something different from what he dealt with at work, and he realized the selfish part of him wanted to keep it that way. He also knew that wasn’t fair to Randy—she had a right to a career too. But why this one? But he thought he already knew that. It was Joe’s feeling that Randy had idolized Midnight from the first time they had met, and now Randy was trying, in some small way, to become more like Midnight. He wasn’t cocky enough to believe it was to be more attractive to him; he knew that wasn’t the case. Randy had seemed to want more lately. She seemed to be pulling away from him, and the cocoon he had tried to wrap her in; she seemed to want to be independent of him, so much so that she would go so far as to apply to be a police officer behind his back, knowing he wouldn’t like it.
The problem was, what should he do? He didn’t want her to be a police officer. In truth, if he really chose to look at it, he didn’t want her to be independent of him either, but he knew that wasn’t right or fair to her.
Where Loyalties Lie (MidKnight Blue Book 3) Page 5