“I know how that goes,” I replied.
“I still don’t understand what she’s doing,” Eliot continued. “That doesn’t look like exercise to me.”
Eliot was apparently spoiling for a fight. Since Lexie and I came from a gene pool that was always spoiling for a fight, she wasn’t about to disappoint him.
“This is hard work,” Lexie said primly.
“It looks like something little kids do when they’re watching television and they’re bored,” Eliot countered.
I opened my mouth to stop the argument that I knew was about to blow up but moved towards the kitchen instead. What was the point? Lexie and Eliot were squabbling machines these days. They were going to find something to fight about, even if I tried to find a way to delay it.
I opened the cupboard to pick a cereal for breakfast, shoving Lexie’s whole-grain wheat blend to the side and grabbing my box of Fruity Pebbles. I poured the cereal in a bowl, added milk, and then walked back into the archway between the kitchen and the main room of the house. Eliot hadn’t moved, but Lexie was now standing in front of him, hands on hips, as she challenged him angrily. I had to give her credit. He had a foot and a half on her and yet she looked like the terrifying one in their standoff.
“This isn’t your house, you know,” she said. “This is Avery’s house – and I don’t have to take this in my cousin’s house.”
“You could leave,” Eliot said blandly.
“You could leave,” Lexie shot back.
“Oh, I’m not going to leave,” Eliot replied angrily. “Not the way you want me to.”
“Well, I’m not going to leave either,” Lexie said snottily.
“That’s because you don’t have anywhere to go,” Eliot continued. “Avery is the only one that will take you.”
“That’s not true,” Lexie said “She likes having me here.”
“Why would she?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Lexie raised one of her perfectly arched eyebrows irritably.
“It means that you eat her food, live here rent-free and pretty much make a nuisance of yourself,” Eliot answered. “Why would she want you around for that?”
Lexie swung on me angrily. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”
“Oh, yeah, run to Avery to protect you,” Eliot mused. “Like you always do.”
Eliot turned to me expectantly. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
I shoved another spoonful of Fruity Pebbles into my mouth and considered both sets of brown eyes as they regarded me – both looking for backup. I swallowed hard. “I have a press conference to get to.”
I swung around quickly, dumped my bowl into the sink, and slid out the back door as quickly as my legs would take me. I didn’t blow out a frustrated breath until I was next to my car. I needed to get Lexie out of my house – and not just because of Eliot. As an only child, I was used to my own space. I didn’t do well when people were constantly pressing me for attention and trying to talk to me. I was perfectly happy spending three hours with my Kindle and Keurig in absolute silence. I hadn’t had that in a really long time.
“Not quick enough.”
I swung around and found Eliot standing in the driveway watching me.
“What?” I feigned ignorance.
“If you wanted to make a clean getaway, you should have gotten in your car and sped away.”
“Would that have stopped you from tracking me down?”
“No.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do,” I said wearily.
Eliot narrowed his eyes as he regarded me. “I know you’re in a tough spot,” he said finally. “I don’t mean to make things harder for you.”
“You’re not,” I protested.
“You can’t tell me you want her to keep staying here,” Eliot pressed. I think he was actually worried that, a year from now, the three of us would all be living together and he would have to blow his brains out to shut out Lexie’s incessant chatter.
“No,” I admitted. “I’m also not going to kick her out – at least not yet.”
“Why not?”
“She’s doing better,” I started.
“Than what?”
“Than what she’s been in the past,” I ignored his pointed jab. “She’ll get on her feet eventually. If I push her too quickly she could have a relapse.”
“She guilts you and you fall for it,” Eliot said harshly. “I find that interesting since you are usually the type of person that can’t be guilted.”
“That’s not true,” I replied.
“Really? That wasn’t you at a family dinner two weeks ago that laughed when your mom cried, big crocodile tears with full sniffles, while trying to make you go to a baby shower for one of her friends?”
“Those weren’t real tears,” I grumbled. “And baby showers are like torture.”
“That’s not the point,” Eliot said patiently. “You have a thing about protecting Lexie specifically.”
I pursed my lips poutily. “It’s just that . . .”
“It’s a habit,” Eliot supplied. “I know.”
“You knew when you started dating me that I had a crazy family,” I pointed out.
“There’s crazy and then there’s Lexie,” Eliot muttered.
“I can’t kick her out,” I said finally. “I just can’t. Not yet.”
Eliot wrinkled his nose and pinched the bridge of it tiredly. “Fine. I don’t expect you to kick her out. Until she’s gone, though, how about we do sleepovers at my place instead of yours?”
I smiled, my first real smile since our shared shower an hour before, and nodded agreeably. “I think that’s fair.” What? He lived right next door to the best coffee place in town. That’s not only avoiding stress but also finding Nirvana at the same time.
Eliot walked to me and kissed me lightly. “That’s good,” he agreed. “I don’t think my blood pressure could take much more of cohabitating with the yoga Yoda – and I only see her once or twice a week as it is.”
I smirked despite myself.
“What?” Eliot cocked an eyebrow.
“Yoga Yoda? I’m rubbing off on you.”
“That’s a terrifying thought.”
He leaned in to kiss me more completely this time but my cell phone interrupted his ministrations. I held up my finger to ask him to wait while I took the call. I saw from the caller ID that it was Fish.
“What’s up?”
“That’s the way you answer the phone?”
“I knew it was you.”
“What if it was an anonymous source?” Fish grumbled.
“Calling from your phone? That would be quite the feat.”
“No one has proper phone etiquette anymore,” Fish continued. “It’s a travesty.”
This could go on forever. “So, why are you calling?”
“I’m sending Duncan to the press conference at the sheriff’s department.”
“What? Why?”
I glanced over when I saw Eliot smirk at my sudden whining.
“I need you to do something else,” Fish replied breezily.
“What?” I asked suspiciously.
“Don’t take that tone,” Fish warned. “I hate it when you take that tone.”
I adjusted my tone through gritted teeth. “What do you want me to do?”
“I’ve set up a meeting for you with the head of the air base.”
I felt the air whoosh out of me. “Why?”
“What do you mean why? We’re dealing with a freeway shooter. That means someone with possible military experience. We have an air base in this county. People are going to be naturally suspicious. We discussed this yesterday.” Fish sounded frustrated.
“But why now?”
“They called us,” Fish said simply.
“Who did?”
“The public affairs agent called me, at home I might add, this morning and said they wanted to set up a one-on-one interview about the situation as soon as poss
ible,” Fish supplied. “It took me by surprise, too.”
“I don’t understand,” I said finally. “You don’t think this sounds fishy?”
“I do,” Fish said. I could practically see him nodding through the phone while twiddling his chunky gold wedding band. “That’s why I’m sending you.”
“Hmmm.”
“I know you won’t toe the government line,” Fish filled in the silence. “You’ll push past the bullshit – whatever bullshit they start shoveling our way. And, I’m telling you, I can just tell there’s going to be a big stinking pile of bullshit.”
“Thanks for the visual,” I grumbled. “I think there was a compliment buried in there, though, so I’ll let it go.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Fish admonished me. “You have to be out there in forty-five minutes, so you should probably get going. It will take you twenty minutes to get through security. Don’t wear anything inappropriate.”
It was too late for that – and there was no way I was going to change now. I disconnected and turned to Eliot. “I guess I’m not going to a press conference at the sheriff’s department.”
“Why?” Eliot watched me curiously.
“Apparently I’m having a one-on-one interview with the base commander out at the air base,” I answered. “He called and requested it.”
“Leonard Turner?” Eliot asked, surprised etched on his handsome face.
“You know him?” I turned to him questioningly.
“Everyone knows about him,” Eliot said. “He was all over the news when he came to town last year.”
I felt a niggling suspicion that Eliot was hiding something from me. I couldn’t press him on the subject, though, because I had to get out to the air base. “Yeah,” I shrugged. “I guess I’ll find out what he wants within the hour.”
Eliot dropped another kiss on my mouth and started moving towards the curb where his truck was parked. I watched curiously as he stopped and turned around. “Be careful around Turner,” he said finally. “He’ll try to mislead you any chance he gets.”
“How do you know that?”
Eliot turned back to his truck without answering. Well, this morning had taken quite a turn – quite a few turns, actually.
Six
Jefferson Air National Guard Base is one of Macomb County’s most noteworthy facilities. It houses a branch of the National Guard and features an assortment of really big military planes. Yeah, I don’t get the appeal, but there’s a museum on the base that draws a big crowd every year – and the air show is always a big deal, even though there’s usually some sort of catastrophe attached to it. We’re talking plane crashes and people falling from various aircrafts to their death. Every single time they host one something terrible happens – and yet they still keep hosting them. Yeah, I don’t get it either.
The base is located in northern Macomb County, with one side facing Lake St. Clair, another facing the woods and a third facing one of the major highways that cuts across the industrial landscape to the east of one of the current shopping hubs.
I hopped on I-94 and took the freeway the entire way out to the base. At the gate, I was met by a stern-looking guard who proceeded to check my car from top to bottom – taking special care to frown at the Star Wars stickers on the back window – before he finished by shoving a stick with a mirror on it underneath the car.
“What’s that for?”
“We’re checking to make sure you aren’t bringing a bomb onto the premises,” the guard answered dully.
“Does that happen a lot?”
“Never. Because we check all vehicles for bombs.”
“You don’t get a lot of dates, do you?”
The guard fixed me with his icy blue eyes. “You’re cleared for entry Ms. Shaw. If you park in that lot right there, the public affairs officer will be out to pick you up in five minutes.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
The guard smiled. “No. It’s standard procedure.”
“What do you think people are going to try and do? Sneak in and steal the secrets to . . . what do you guys even do out here? Do you have any secrets? I doubt it.”
“Ma’am, if you will just pull your vehicle over there, someone will be with you shortly.”
“Why did you take the time to check my car for a bomb if you’re just going to make me park it in a field?”
“It’s . . .”
“Standard procedure, I know. This morning just sucks,” I grumbled.
The guard ignored the statement, but I saw in the rearview mirror that he watched me until I pulled into the lot, put my car in park and turned off the engine.
The public affairs officer was prompt, and exactly what I expected: A middle-aged man in a pressed cotton shirt with perfectly ironed pleats in his pants and a bald spot on the back of his head. “I’m Sgt. Dan Harmon.”
“Avery Shaw,” I held out my hand.
“Please get in my vehicle and I’ll take you to Commander Turner.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Yes, he’s very impressive,” Dan nodded with a wide – and obviously fake – smile. He wanted me to think he was oblivious to sarcasm when he obviously wasn’t. That didn’t make me think he was charming, just suspicious.
“So, why am I out here?” I decided to press the situation.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Sgt. Harmon said evasively. “You’re out here for an interview with Commander Turner.”
“Yeah, but you called my editor to request it,” I pushed on. “That’s not standard operating procedure.”
“You’ll have to ask Commander Turner about that.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Yes, he’s very impressive.”
And they say military personnel don’t make jokes.
Sgt. Harmon drove me to the center of the base, parking in front of a large and rectangular structure I had never seen before. I wracked my brain, trying to remember if I had ever been on the base for anything other than an air show, and came up empty. “What building is this?”
“This is the administration building.”
“It doesn’t have a fancy name?”
“It’s the John F. Kennedy Administration Building.”
Oh, good, another joke.
I followed Sgt. Harmon into the building, glancing around at the clean and well-pressed soldiers toiling silently around me. I realized, pretty quickly, that my jeans, simple black T-shirt and Darth Vader hoodie were probably out of place for an air base. Fish was right about wearing something inappropriate – although I would never admit that fact to him. I couldn’t muster up a lot of worry about the situation, though. In fact, I was starting to wish I had worn a more colorful shirt to combat the dreariness of taupe that was starting to smother me.
Sgt. Harmon led me into a big, oval office where I was greeted by a severe-looking secretary with a bun that was so tight it looked like her skin was being stretched so hard it would snap like a rubber-band at any second.
“We’re here to see Commander Turner,” Dan announced.
“He’s expecting you,” the secretary said, running her eyes up and down my body – pausing at my Thundercats Converse – and then nodding towards the door. “Go right in.”
I plastered a faux smile on my face and followed Dan through the door. Leonard Turner was not what I expected – well at least entirely. Sure, he was dressed in the same dreary outfit everyone else on the base was wearing – though his was adorned with a lot more fancy jewelry (which I was sure was supposed to signify that he was some sort of military hero) – but he was leaning back lazily in his desk chair and smiling widely at me when I entered. There was something about his smile that bugged me, though, like I was the mouse and he was the cat.
“Commander Turner,” I held out my hand in greeting.
I saw his green eyes run over my outfit – I really should have worn my Keep Our Forests Green Ewok shirt for shock value or, better yet, my Shark Week Bite Me shirt
– and watched as his smile faltered. “You’re Avery Shaw?”
“I am,” I said amiably.
“I guess you weren’t expecting to work today,” Commander Turner frowned at my outfit.
“Oh, I was planning on working today,” I said brightly. “I just didn’t realize I was coming here.”
“Oh, were you supposed to cover a comic convention or something?” Commander Turner apparently thought the way to get me on his side was to condescend to me.
“No, the press conference at the sheriff’s department.”
“Was it later and you didn’t have time to change your outfit?”
“Nope.”
“And your boss lets you dress like that?” Commander Turner was like a dog with a bone.
“Let? More like puts up with.” I wasn’t going to give an inch either, though.
“And why would he do that?”
“I’m good at my job.”
“And you’re union,” Commander Turner said finally, nodding his head like the answer to world peace had just occurred to him.
What was that supposed to mean?
“He can’t fire you for your attire without the union being a pain,” Commander Turner continued. “That makes sense.”
Okay, now I was getting annoyed. I should have worn my Keep Calm and STFU shirt instead. That really would have gotten him going. Instead, I decided to focus on the task at hand. “What can I do for you?”
Commander Turner returned his gaze to my face. “I’m sorry.”
“You called for this interview, so what do you want to talk about?”
I could tell he didn’t like the sudden shift in the conversation. He didn’t like anyone else to take control. “I figured that you would want this interview after the incident on the freeway yesterday, so I thought we would do you a favor.”
Oh, a favor. “Why did you think that we would want an interview?” I decided to play dumb.
Commander Turner wrinkled his nose. “It’s a freeway shooter.”
“So?”
“That usually leads one to think of sharp shooters.”
“And?”
“Sharp shooters are usually equated to the military,” Commander Turner said carefully. “Even though that’s a misnomer.”
Shot Off The Presses: An Avery Shaw Mystery Book 4 Page 4