Josie managed to get another punch in as she rose from the ground. It was a gut shot and it felt like hitting the heavy bag boxers work out with. It would take about twenty of those stomach punches before Gabby would start to feel it. Gabby moved back and gave them some fighting room, and then came forward with an unexpected left that sent Josie crashing back to the sidewalk. She rolled quickly out of the way when she saw Gabby’s boot swing toward her ribs, which pissed Josie off. Fucking firefighters never fought fair. She scrambled to her feet and moved in toward Gabby, who was moving around in a circle. That was when she saw Gabby reach into her leather vest and pull out a switchblade. When she opened the knife it made that pffft sound that meant everything was about to go to shit.
“Can we dial this down?” Josie said. “I don’t think you want to stab me, do you?”
Josie was circling in counterpoint to Gabby. She considered running away, but she wouldn’t give Gabby that satisfaction. They circled around each other like two wrestlers.
“Yeah, I really do,” said Gabby, who looked like she’d changed into another person, not unlike the Hulk. Savage, and not necessarily compos mentis. “You don’t know what I want. You don’t know what I can do.” She moved in and thrust the knife at Josie, who luckily was more nimble than strong. It was time to put an end to it. She drew the gun holstered at her back and prayed she wouldn’t have to use it.
Gabby’s eyes fell on the gun. “Now that’s cheating,”
“No, it’s not. Rock beats scissors.” Josie continued walking in the same circle Gabby was, both of her hands wrapped around the Glock. “Don’t make me use this, Gabby. All you have to do is put the knife down and we’re done. You can beat it before the cops come. They might be a while. I can tell you from experience a fight at a gay bar doesn’t have them speeding over with lights and sirens.” She saw a flicker of indecision in Gabby’s eyes. “So what’s it going to be? Are you going to lay the knife down and kick it over to me or am I going to have to shoot you?”
Josie thought Gabby would take some time before deciding how to get out of her fix with the most pride left intact, but as soon as her last word was spoken, Gabby aimed the knife and threw it straight at her. If Josie hadn’t turned to her side she’d have a five-inch knife in her gut. Bad news. She swung the gun on Gabby. “Get the hell out of here, now, or I’ll shoot you for being a fucking asshole,” she said with real disgust. “And if I hear of you hurting Ann-Marie again I’ll be back to see you.”
Amazingly, Gabby kept coming toward her, toward the barrel of the Glock, putting Josie in the position of possibly shooting an unarmed person. Her training told her no-no. Her thumping heart said yes-yes. When she got within range, Josie flipped the gun in her hand and clubbed Gabby on the side of the head, barely pulling her punch. She really didn’t want to kill her. Gabby went down in a heap, yowling.
Josie stood over her. “Now take off, run before the cops come. You have nothing left, Gabby.”
Gabby now had blood pouring down her face from a head wound, streaming alongside the blood from her broken nose. She looked like a doomed character in a horror film. She got up and finally turned tail. She disappeared down one of the residential streets, and Josie did the same as she heard the first sirens coming their way. She ran in the opposite direction and stopped running when she reached a tot lot a couple blocks away from Tillie’s. What the fuck was that about? She knew Gabby was a hothead, but she saw something lethal in her eyes, and something crazy. She knew she’d have to deal with Gabby at some point, if only to keep Ann-Marie safe. If she were still looking for alternative killers, Gabby would be back to number one on the list.
After enough time had passed for Tillie to get rid of the cops, Josie walked back through the door and returned to her seat at the bar. Tillie came over and glared at her.
“Sorry. But I couldn’t let Gabby manhandle Ann-Marie like that. It isn’t right.”
“No, it isn’t right. I’m glad you stepped in, but I had to throw you out anyway. You know how it is.” Tillie poured another beer and placed it in front of Josie. “I think you’ve earned this one.”
Josie stared at the beer, seriously considering drinking a second one for the first time since she got out of the hospital. Greta would be livid. She was totally against Josie having even one beer a day. She said it made the meds less effective. Clearly, Greta didn’t know everything.
She was picking up the mug of beer when she felt her phone vibrate in the back pocket of her jeans. She pulled it out. The number wasn’t recognizable, but Josie had no doubt who it was and her heart began to thump, more than it had when she was being threatened with a knife minutes before. The text simply said, “Get back here.”
*
Lauren flung the door open immediately after it rang. She wasn’t interested in being coy. She wanted Josie as soon as possible. Josie stood on the doorstep, a little rumpled, her cheeks flushed, her eyes searching Lauren’s for a signal. Without speaking, Lauren reached out for Josie’s arm and pulled her into the house, kicking the door shut as she put her arms around Josie’s neck. Josie turned and pushed Lauren against the door and kissed her for all she was worth. Lauren felt invaded by the kiss, filled by it, breathless from it. She broke the contact and stared into Josie’s somewhat dazed eyes.
“So you’ve done this before?” Lauren said, smiling.
“Once or twice.”
“Kissed a girl for the first time like that?”
Josie hesitated. “Sure. But I don’t remember it ever feeling this way.”
“What way?” Lauren was teasing her, hooking her fingers through Josie’s belt loops and pulling her closer.
“Like I want to rip your clothes off.”
Lauren saw the pure desire in Josie’s eyes. “What are you waiting for, then?” She’d changed into a tunic length T-shirt and slim stretch pants after she’d called Josie, wanting the minimum of fumbling. She’d imagined the scene almost exactly as it was playing out.
Josie kissed her again as intensely, before pulling Lauren’s shirt over her head and pushing her pants down to her ankles. Lauren kicked them away. She stood naked against the door and watched as Josie looked at her from an arm’s length away.
“You’re beautiful,” Josie whispered.
Lauren didn’t say a word. Standing before her, fully clothed, Josie was gorgeous. Her hair was wildly swirling around her head from Lauren gripping and tugging and running her fingers through it. Her lips looked plumper, pinker than before the bruising kisses. Lauren crooked her finger and summoned Josie, who did not need much direction.
“Don’t mess around,” Lauren said, pushing Josie to her knees. Josie kissed an inner thigh as she placed Lauren’s leg over her shoulder. That was the end of the teasing kisses. Josie brought her mouth to her and hit the exact right spot with her tongue on the first try, making Lauren squirm and moan above her. Lauren gripped the door frame, trying to keep herself upright as Josie devoured her. She tried to hold out, but she’d been speeding toward orgasm from the moment she opened her door. There was no holding it at bay now. She gripped Josie’s head and screamed her bloody head off. Before she went completely limp, she felt Josie’s arm come around her waist to support her.
Lauren’s head still rested against the door and she took some time to recover before opening her eyes and looking at Josie. “Upstairs,” she said.
Josie took her hand and led her up the old banistered stairway, both of them weaving slightly as if they were drunk. Lauren pointed toward her bedroom, where they shut themselves away for the night. Everything had played out as she’d imagined, but she hadn’t anticipated her emotional reaction to it. She’d never been as aroused before, not with Kelly or any other woman. All of her past lovers had been beautiful—this wasn’t simply a physical reaction. She’d been expecting something like her experience with Cory—light, fun, and very satisfying. But her reaction to Josie was so far beyond that.
Love was not something she needed right now.
Holy shit. Josie lay on her stomach, trying to recover. She’d just had six orgasms. Six. That was about six more than she normally had with her sex partners. She’d blamed that on her drinking. She’d been numb from the waist down for a long time. She never suspected it might have to do with her disconnection from the women she was fucking. She felt foolish to discover what sex could be at her age, but it was a stunning revelation. She felt she could go on all day and into the night and never come up for air.
She rolled onto her back and drew Lauren over her, like a blanket. Their slack bodies molded to each other’s curves like one of those foam mattresses she’d tried out at the store. Shockingly expensive. She was surprised Lauren didn’t have one. The room they were in was large and luxurious. She’d visited the master bath once and was rendered mute. The shower was on the other side of the room from the bathtub, not in the bathtub. The toilet was closed off in its own little room. It had a control pad installed next to the toilet with icons of people sitting on the can. Water was shooting at their privates from a variety of angles. Your choice. Josie was completely bewildered. Everything was complicated when it came to Lauren, even her toilet.
The solid but relaxed way they were now cleaved together felt better than any postcoital feeling she’d ever had. Of course, six orgasms would account for much of that, but it was her openness to Lauren that allowed those orgasms to happen. The way Lauren gave herself to Josie, the way she was so immodest and wild, so accepting. It was glorious and probably disastrous.
“Do you think we’ve had enough for one night?” Lauren whispered. She lay on top of Josie with the slack weight of a sleeping baby.
Josie looked at the nightstand clock. It was four in the morning and she had to report for her shift at eight. For the first time in a week she felt she could sleep a whole night.
“Possibly not,” Josie said, rubbing Lauren’s back. “But I think it’s all I can do. You practically killed me.”
Lauren raised her head and smiled smugly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was. You have exceptional gifts,” Josie said.
Josie kissed the top of Lauren’s head and instantly went to sleep.
Chapter Thirty
Thursday, September 12
It was seven in the morning and Josie was trying to get out of Lauren’s house and to a coffee shop before her shift. Lauren kept dragging her back into bed. Josie squirmed around to face her, seeing the glint in Lauren’s eyes, the satisfied look on her face.
“You look like you’ve been well and truly laid,” Josie said. She might have to work on her romantic lines, not having had much practice with them.
Lauren smiled, and then yawned and drew Josie even closer. “Like I’ve never been before. I want to fall back asleep, but I’m afraid if I do you’ll skedaddle out of here.”
Josie leaned on an elbow and traced a line down Lauren’s jaw. “Well, boss. If you remember, I’m on a team trying to track down your parents. Don’t you think it’s a good idea to let me go?”
Lauren looked contrite. “Of course. Maybe sex like that is the only thing that keeps them from my mind.” She looked teasingly at Josie. “Perhaps I’ve hired you for the wrong job.”
Josie looked down at her. She knew she was teasing, but she also knew how desperate Lauren was to lessen the pressure she’d been under for months. She was warm and pliable now. It must feel like heaven. Josie could relate. She felt slack also, as if her legs wouldn’t hold her up once she stood. She was used to bounding out of the bed of whoever she’d just had sex with and escaping as quickly as possible. Reluctantly, she extricated herself from Lauren and slid out of the giant bed.
“I really have to go. I have to meet Stan in an hour and I still have coffee to get for the crew. He’ll be pissed if I’m late,” Josie said.
Lauren watched as Josie put on her clothes. She looked regretful. “This won’t be the last time for us,” she said. This was a declaration, not a question. She was out of bed, wrapping a green silk robe around her. It clung to her body and Josie couldn’t take her eyes off her.
“No, not the last time,” Josie said. “But first things first. I’m heading out to find your parents. That’s the priority.”
Josie led the way downstairs. They kissed good-bye before Lauren closed the door on her. She climbed into her car, her mind as jumbled as her body was relaxed. Did she just spend the night with Lauren? It barely felt real.
*
Josie made a quick run home to change clothes, take her meds, and stop at Kopi for coffee. Two extra-large cups went into her thermos, and she added a few to-go cups for the others on duty at Tim’s. She wore her comfiest jeans and a few layers of shirts. The September weather was starting to feel cooler, but sitting in a car in the sun could be hot. There was really nothing comfortable about doing surveillance.
As she turned from the counter to leave the coffee shop, Lucy walked in. Josie felt a mixture of annoyance and guilt. She wanted to feel as if she’d been wronged, but she knew she was about to be a gigantic ass. Lucy beamed a smile and walked straight toward her.
“Finally!” she said. “I thought you’d been swallowed whole by this case you’re working on.” Lucy was dressed in slim trousers and a green button-down shirt with a rakish scarf around her neck. She looked fantastic. Still, Josie stiffened as she remembered Lucy had gossiped about her.
“Good morning,” Josie said. She was holding her thermos and a cardboard tray as she tried to take a step around Lucy.
Lucy frowned. “What’s going on? You’re acting like I have the plague.”
“Sorry,” Josie said, as she got through the door and onto Clark Street. The air was brisk, but the sun shone brightly in that peculiar way it does in September, the blues almost as bright as the sun itself. Josie slipped her sunglasses down from the top of her head. Lucy was right behind her and touched Josie’s elbow to get her to stop. Josie kept walking toward her car, which was parked in front of Cas Hardware, a derelict mom-and-pop hardware store wedged between a Homemade Pizza and a do-it-yourself yogurt shop. Ancient merchandise slid into a pool in the front window of the shop. It felt sad. Josie worried about small businesses. She felt bad for the owners when they were forced out of business. Their dreams had been somehow short-circuited, something Josie related to.
Lucy strode beside her, looking at Josie’s stony face. “Josie, aren’t you the woman I slept with a couple nights ago? What’s happened? Have I done something you’re upset about?”
Lucy seemed confident enough to hear what she had to say, unlike Josie, who would never ask that question for fear of what the answer might be. She stopped at her car and put the coffee on the roof to unlock the door. She actually had to insert a key and turn it. There were no fobs involved.
“There’s one thing I can’t stand, Lucy, and that’s gossip about me. I was at Tillie’s last night and Tillie told me you’d been talking to her about my illness. As far as I’m concerned, we’re done.”
Lucy looked stunned. And then indignant. “Had it ever occurred to you to ask me about this before you decided to break things off? One thing I can’t stand is a unilateral decision on what happens in a relationship. We hardly know each other yet, but still I think I’m owed that courtesy.”
Josie looked at her across the roof of the car, trying to disguise her dismay. Lucy was right. She set the coffees carefully on the front seat and turned back to her. “Are you saying you didn’t talk to Tillie about me?”
“Not in the way you think,” Lucy said. “Tillie said she’d heard you were back in the bar and chatting me up. She wanted to know where you’ve been for so long, especially since you used to practically live there. I simply replied you’d been ill and hadn’t been out much the last few months. She asked me what you were sick from and I told her I had no idea. Is that what you’re breaking up with me about?”
Josie hesitated. She probably would have easily relented to Lucy’s very reasonable explanation, but
now there was Lauren to consider. Why were lesbians so awful about seeing more than one person at a time? She couldn’t see trying to keep up both budding relationships, especially with two such different people. All she could manage was a shrug. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m sure you didn’t mean anything by it, but I still think an ‘I don’t know’ would have been a better answer to Tillie’s question.” She got in her car and rolled the passenger window down, leaning over to talk to Lucy. “It changed the way I feel about you. That’s undoubtedly more about me than you.”
She rolled the window up quickly as she saw Lucy’s mouth open in further protest. As Josie drove away, feeling like a complete asshole, she watched in the rearview mirror as Lucy stared after her. What a fucking cad she was. She liked Lucy a lot, but she loved the spark between her and Lauren. It was like a drug. Lucy was like treatment. Right now, Josie chose the drug.
She drove down Lake Shore Drive to get to Lincoln Park as quickly as possible, passing the lagoon with the early morning rowers out, and then west on Fullerton and south on Stockton to drive through the heart of the park itself, where the zoo was spread across the greenery and she could hear a lion roar. She drove on another minute and pulled up at the end of Tim’s street just as her phone rang.
“Good morning, Stan.”
“You’re barely on time.” He didn’t sound happy.
“True. But I brought coffee for everyone,” Josie said.
“Park on Hudson and bring it to the observation post. You’re on duty up here today.” He hung up. That was very good news. Sitting in a car was becoming almost intolerable for her, her need to move around had become so great. Plus, she felt slightly aroused every time she thought about her night with Lauren. Sitting still would only double the torture. She made her way to Hudson and squeezed into a parking space. Then she walked to the alley that took her behind Tim’s house and climbed the stairs to the garage apartment Tommy had rented the day before. Tommy answered her knock, a two-day growth of beard on his face and slight rings around his eyes where they’d been glued to a set of binoculars. She hadn’t met Tommy before and they sized each other up. They knew each had left the police department in less-than-ideal circumstances, which gave them a natural bond, of sorts. Josie was relieved to see he was doing his job while on duty, and when he showed her the hourly log he’d drawn up, she liked him all the more.
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