by J. M. Stone
Sighing in exasperation at what I was about to walk into, I pulled up to the street outside my sister’s house. I parked and got out, heading into the darkness of the trees lining the fence, knowing I’m about to have to make an ass out of myself. I grabbed the top of the chain link fence and started jamming my toes into the holes and climbing. I got to the top and started to throw my leg over when all of a sudden a hand grabbed my ankle and I let out a terrified squeak.
“Holy jeebus, shut the hell up, would you?” Jenna smacked at my leg until I had to growl at her to stop.
“Jenna, you idiot, what are you doing? And why the hell do I need to climb your stupid fence anyway? Where’s Noah?”
“Just hurry up and get down here. I don’t have much time to get into place, since you took your sweet ass time getting here.” Jenna moved back from the fence to allow me room to flip my other leg up and over the top.
Just as I got my leg over and started scrambling for a toe hold, my hands slipped and I fell backwards into the grass. Not giving me time to catch my breath, Jenna reached down and started pulling on my arms trying to get me to my feet. Once I got up, she grabbed me and we made a mad dash to the back door. Once we got to the door, she shoved me to the side and looked frantically both ways before sliding the glass door open. She reached back out and pulled me through the door.
“Okay,” she began breathlessly, “I think Noah is cheating on me. He just told me that he has to leave shortly because he got called in to work. I’m going to hide in the back of the car so I can see where he goes, so I need you to stay here with the kids. Got it? Good.” Jenna started to turn away from me, but I grabbed her arm and turned her around to face me.
Putting my hand on her forehead to check for a fever, I asked, “Jenna, are you sick? Or maybe drunk? What the fuck have you been smoking? You’re high, right? Cause there is no way in hell Noah is cheating on you. He’s a detective for cripes sake, so he probably does have to go into work.” I rolled my eyes at her as she ripped her arm out of my grasp and started to stomp away.
“I’ll be back sometime, I’m not sure when. You know where the blankets and pillows are, kids are asleep, duh, so…” and then she walked out to the garage without a backwards glance.
A split second later I heard footsteps thudding down the stairs and scrambled to cram myself into the pantry to avoid Noah as he walked towards the garage. God only knows what was going on with my sister, but far be it for me to ruin her carefully laid plans. Not that they really could be called carefully laid…but you get the idea.
I hear Noah call out, “Jenna? Honey? I gotta go, okay? Call me before you go to bed, baby, I love you. Jenna?” Footsteps start to walk back towards the stairs, hesitate for a second, then I hear Noah sigh and walk out the door to the garage. I stay crammed into the pantry until I hear the garage door go up, the car back out, and the door shut again.
Shaking my head, I headed for the linen closet to make up the spare bedroom and get back to sleep, knowing that Jenna hasn’t thought about when Noah comes home and finds me there and Jenna hiding somewhere in his car. That should prove to be an interesting conversation!
Not twenty minutes later, when I finally get settled and start to drift off to sleep, my cell phone rings. I groaned. Not again!
“Hello, Jenna,” I sighed as I answered, not bothering to even look at the caller ID.
“Hey. I’m hiding in the backseat of the car under his old raincoat. He so doesn’t know I’m in here! Anyway, he’s stopped at a Snack ‘N Shack to grab a couple things, but I heard him on the phone talking to someone. He said something about getting ready cause it could take all night, and then something about saving him a cigar.“ Her voice turned whiney. “Emma! He doesn’t smoke! And what could take all night? See? He’s cheating, I know…gotta go.” The phone clicked off in my ear without another word.
I pulled the phone away from my ear and tried not to rattle my brain shaking my head too much at my sister’s crazy antics. And she’s supposed to be the responsible mother one? Sheesh.
I woke up what felt like mere minutes later to see Noah standing in the door, looking at me in that disappointed, I’m a cop, you’re the bad guy, I want to put you in jail and throw away the key kind of way. Judging by the light creeping around the edges of the curtains, it must be morning. I sheepishly shrugged my shoulders and crawled out of the bed.
“Morning, Noah.” I lightly kissed his cheek as I passed him, intent on escaping to the bathroom.
“Emma, is there any way you want to tell me why your sister ended up crouched on the back floor board of the car under my rain coat last night? And maybe why your car is parked down the street by the fence?” Noah didn’t sound happy, but then again, I probably wouldn’t be happy having a lunatic for a wife, either.
I sighed. “Give me a minute and then I need coffee for this. Lots of it.” I heard him walk away from me as I shut the bathroom door behind me.
After washing my face and trying to tame my hair with my hands a bit, I left the bathroom and followed the heavenly scent of coffee to the kitchen. I needed to get my Tattoo Goo out of my car and take care of my tattoo, but I figured that could wait until I got home. When I walked into the room, I had to stop and stare for a minute at the chaos spread before me. Jenna was sprawled face down at the table asleep while Jarrod sat staring at her from across the table. He was eating the biggest bowl of cereal I think I’ve ever seen in my natural life. Hayden was standing beside Jenna’s chair steadily poking her lolling head with a noodle (not the pasta kind, the long Styrofoam tubey kind that you play with in a pool). God only knows where she managed to get her hands on one of those, and at her feet was a gallon of milk that was looking suspiciously blue.
Shaking my head, I grabbed the noodle out of Hayden’s hand and swiped the milk jug off the floor. Gazing into it’s depths, I decided that it wasn’t safe to keep, so I poured it down the sink.
“Hayden, its not nice to poke mommy in the head while she’s sleeping. Go wash your hands, sweetie and we’ll get you something for breakfast. How did the milk get blue anyway?” I asked.
Hayden shrugged her tiny little shoulders at me and said, “I don’ know, Aun’ Emmy.”
I watched as she clasped her hands behind her back, fingers looking a little blueberryish. Then I noticed the two empty packets of Blue Raspberry Koolaid crumpled between Jenna’s slippered feet under the table. Mystery solved. Well, at least I knew the what. The why? Hmm. Probably will never know.
Turning to Jarrod I asked, “Could you have found a bigger bowl, dude? You’re gonna make yourself sick trying to eat that much. Where’d your dad go?”
“He’s on the back porch drinking coffee and waiting on you,” he said. Turning back to his bowl of cereal and steady watch of his passed out mother, he effectively let me know that the conversation was over.
“Keep an eye on your sister for a minute, would you? And share some of that cereal with her. Oh, and don’t let her poke your mom anymore, either, okay?” I asked.
Jarrod nodded. “Okay.”
I turned and made my way out the door to talk to Noah. Not that I was looking forward to this conversation, because, honestly, I had no clue what had happened last night with the exception of my falling on my ass after climbing the fence, hiding in the pantry, and listening to Jenna justify playing hide and seek with her husband without cluing him into the game.
“So,” Noah began, as he slid a cup of coffee over to me.
I held up my hand. “It would be easier and quicker if you just filled me in on the hours between when I fell off your fence, got manhandled by your wife, crammed myself into the pantry, fielded strange ass phone calls in the middle of the night, and now, when I woke up feeling like you were about to arrest me.”
Noah quirked his eyebrow at me. “You climbed the fence and hid in the…never mind. Your sister,” he sighed in exasperation, “hid on the floorboard in the back of my car last night. Under my raincoat. Like I wouldn’t notice a wiggling
lump in the back of the car. I mean, she does realize that I’m a detective, right, Emma?”
I shrugged and watched as my sister opened the door to come out and join us. Her hair looked like she’d stuck a finger in a light socket somewhere, and it wasn’t pretty.
Noah continued, watching his wife with an unreadable expression. “I stopped at the Snack ‘N Shack to get some munchies because I got called in to cover for one of the guys who’s wife went into labor. We were doing a stake out for this case we’ve been working on, but since your sister decided to stow away like Little Orphan Annie in my car, I had to hang back and let someone else take point. So, I decided to teach your sister a lesson.”
My eyes widened at this, and I glanced at my sister who was watching her husband with that look. You know, the one that says, “you say another word and not only will I never put out for you again, but I will bury you in the back yard.”
Noah said, “I drove around until I got to Rider Park and parked in the back. Then I sat there to see how long it would be before Jenna realized that I knew she was there. I noticed the bag of chips being drug slowly into the backseat by a black glove covered hand,” Noah drawled. “I didn’t say anything, and it took all I had not to laugh at the crunching sounds emanating from under my rain coat.” He looked over to where Jenna was still standing and his eyes started to sparkle. “I even let her get away with stealing my slushie while I was pretending to get something out of the trunk.”
“What? I was hungry and thirsty you bought all the good junk food that we never get to have in the house. Someone has to be the responsible parent and make the kids eat healthy,” Jenna hollered indignantly.
I rolled my eyes at this and asked her, “So did you notice what your kids were eating this morning while you were passed out like a coed after a frat party on the table?”
She glared at me and Noah before plopping down in Noah’s lap and stealing his coffee.
Noah grinned and patted her thigh fondly. “I was content to let her stay cramped up back there for as long as possible, but apparently she got bored. I couldn’t take it anymore when I started hearing pig snorts and birds and busted out laughing.”
He started chuckling even harder when Jenna shrugged her shoulders and said, “Angry Birds. Love that game.”
I started laughing and couldn’t stop because of the mental images I had popping around in my head.
“So I reached back and jerked the raincoat off of her. She just sat up and glared at me like I was interrupting her. Then I got in the backseat and pulled her up with me and we talked. And then we…” Noah waggled his eyebrows and grinned lasciviously at Jenna. “So next time she calls you for a harebrained idea like last night? You can still come running,” he said, laughing.
Jenna blushed and ducked her head against his shoulder. I groaned. Time for me to go!
Chapter 3
The rest of my weekend passed without incident (which was a relief, for once) and Monday came way too early. Guess I should really learn to put down my book and actually go to sleep, right?
I walked into the office where I worked, my heels click clacking against the tile. I love that sound. Weird, right? But it makes me feel professional and sexy. I had worn my favorite sweater dress today, a soft smoky gray color that has a fitted top and sharp pleats that flow from just under my boobs to just above my knees. I paired it with black leggings and my high heeled black boots with the cute little double silver buckles on each side. I had swept my hair up in a messy topknot at the back of my head, and had put on a minimal amount of makeup. Usually, I only outline my eyes in kohl, because that makes them really stand out more than they already do from their unusual color. Already I could tell it was going to be a busy day because the phones were ringing off the hook.
I’m a legal secretary for an attorney in the town where I live. I live in Phillus. Its not a big town, kind of small, really, in the southern part of Ohio. At least once a year some genius gets the bright idea to spray paint the town sign over the “i” with an “a”, and until the township catches it, we live in “Phallus”, Ohio. Doesn’t that make you wanna visit?
I snatch the phone up as I plop down at my desk. “Good morning, Floyd Grim’s office, may I help you?” I said breathlessly into the phone.
A creaky, scratchy voice yells in my ear, “Emma? Is that you?”
I sigh. “Yes, Mrs. Allen. It’s me, Emma.”
“Dear, I cant find Fluffers. I think that rat bastard Doc next door took him again,” she rasped.
“Mrs. Allen, we don’t handle those kinds of cases. I told you that last week. And remember? Doc is the town vet, he probably picked him up again to give him his shots,” I told her in a gentle voice.
Mrs. Allen calls at least once a week, and the conversations usually have something to do with her forty-five pound cat, Fluffers. A couple of years ago, she got ambitious and brought him into the office because “he” wanted to sue Doc for neutering him without his “mommy’s” permission. I think the cat weighed almost as much as Mrs. Allen, and he was a nasty gray furball that I think was white at one time. Don’t get me wrong, I think Mrs. Allen takes care of him as much as she can for someone who was born in 1824 (I’m kidding…it was more like 1482) but Doc actually sneaks and helps her out.
Mrs. Allen wasn’t done yet. “Well, can I sue him for that? Fluffers doesn’t like needles.”
I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair. My other lines started to ring and I almost wept in relief.
“Mrs. Allen, you cant sue him for that, its helping Fluffers. My other lines are ringing, so I have to go, okay? I’ll talk to you next week,” I told her.
“Okay, Emma. I’m sure that rat bastard will have done something more to poor Fluffers by then. Thanks, dear.” With that, Mrs. Allen hung the phone up in my ear.
I hit the button for the next line and gave my greeting. Silence. Oh, well, guess they will call back. Reaching to hit the next line key, I smiled as my boss walked in the door. He’s a nice guy, been practicing law for all my life and even more of his. He’s absent minded about a lot of things, but when it comes to his cases, he’s sharp as a tack. And he pays pretty good, so…
Grabbing a file off the counter that I threw up there for him, Floyd waved and ambled back out the door as I answered the phone again.
“Good morning, Floyd Grim’s office, may I help you?” I said into the phone.
“Ewwa!” someone yelled into my ear. Huh?
“Ewwa, ith Awwie.”
“Allie?” I asked.
“Yeth. Awwie. I goth a pwobwem,” Allie whined into the phone.
Okay. “Allie, what’s going on? And why are you talking like that?” I asked.
“I nee’ yew to mee’ me on yew wunth bweak ath my houth. Pweath,” Allie begged.
This should be interesting. After promising I would be at her house at noon, I hung up the phone with Allie and got to work. The morning flew by in between phone calls and clients, and in no time I had to meet Allie. I grabbed my keys and locked up the office for lunch, heading out to my car.
I pulled up at Allie’s house in my cute, little yellow VW Bug and she came running down her front steps holding a paper towel up to her face. Now I was worried.
She got in the car and told me, “Thathoo thop, pweath. I wipp’th my thung.”
I stared at her in shock until she grunted and smacked at my thigh to get me going. Putting the car in drive, I headed downtown to the tattoo shop. (I’m assuming that I heard her correctly. Its kind of hard to understand someone when they’re holding their tongue with a paper towel.)
After about ten minutes, we pulled up at Skin Deep, the tattoo shop that I didn’t think I would be frequenting again any time soon after Friday night. Especially for the fact that I embarrassed myself beyond belief in there.
Allie and I got out of the car and walked into the shop. I didn’t see anyone at the counter right away, but after a minute, Brandon came around the corner looking even better than before
(Either that or my eyes were so starved for eye candy they enhanced his deliciousness).
His face broke into a grin as he shouted, “Hey! It’s Crash and Allison! What’s up, ladies?”
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but return his grin as I pointed at Allie and said, “Well, Allie has done something to “wip” her “thung”, which I am assuming translates to mean she ripped her tongue. How? Not sure. But I am dying to find out!” I turned to grin at Allie, who looked so pathetic that I busted out laughing.
Allie shot me a dirty look and then turned to Brandon with the most pathetic face (even more pathetic than she looked ten seconds ago, which I didn’t think was possible) I’ve ever seen on a person. Brandon came around the counter and gently pulled Allie’s fingers and the paper towel away from her mouth.
“Okay, you should be able to talk a little bit better without your fingers and everything in your mouth. So what did you do?,” Brandon asked Allie.
“I was eating a fudge bar and when I licked it, well, you know…when you eat a popsicle and you put it in your mouth and then kinda suck and pull it back out? Know what I mean?” Allie trailed off, waiting for someone to acknowledge that we knew what she was talking about.
I wasn’t going there. And if Brandon’s eyes got any bigger, they were going to pop out of his head. I didn’t think his lips could stretch any further either, judging by the huge grin he had plastered on his face.
Allie continued earnestly, “ Well, I was eating the fudge bar and when I pulled it out, the ball to my tongue ring kinda dug into it and I felt this excruciating sharp pain in my tongue. Then I tasted the blood, which, hello, does not go with chocolate. Guess I could never be a vampire, huh? Anyway, I looked in the mirror and ‘lo and behold, I ripped my tongue!” The last part ended on a wail.