by Theresa Weir
“No,” Joe said in a way that made him sound surprised by his own revelation.
“Do you plan to?”
Oh, Ellen was good.
Joe thought about that a moment. “Yeah.” He nodded in a way that made him sound completely firm in this new resolve.
Melody was staring at him in horror, shaking her head. They all knew what was coming next. Max just hoped and prayed Joe would do this right. And he didn’t disappoint.
Joe slipped from the couch. Careful of his injury, he eased himself down on one knee, extended a hand to Melody. She took it, but with a dazed, befuddled, I’ll-kill-you-later look in her eye.
“Melody, will you marry me?”
Max had always wondered about those public proposals. Where the guy proposed in front of an audience. Like at a football game or some such nonsense. Really, what if the girl didn’t even care about the guy? But Melody cared about Joe. Really cared. Max knew it.
“What are you doing?” Melody asked.
“Asking you to be my wife.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe Max should decide,” Ellen said. “Maybe you should propose to Max.”
Joe dropped Melody’s hand as if it were an old fish. He reached and cradled Max’s paw gently in his palm. “Max, should I take your mistress Melody’s hand in marriage?”
Max meowed in agreement.
“Max!” Melody said in shock. “Maxwell!”
“And you know what?” Ellen said. “I just happen to be an ordained minister.” On cue, bridesmaids appeared. Suddenly Ellen was decked out in some kind of official-looking white robe with gold trim. She began to recite wedding vows.
Melody put up both hands and shouted: “Stop! Stop this right now!”
Everybody stopped. The audience leaned forward.
“We are not getting married.”
“Wouldn’t it be a great thing to tell your kids and your grandkids?” Ellen said. “And just think, no need to send out wedding invitations. No need to spend months planning the event. We can do it here. Now.”
Melody scooped up Max. “Thank you, Ellen. I appreciate the offer, but Joe and I aren’t getting married.”
“Well, if you change your mind you know where to find me.”
The audience laughed.
With Max in her arms, Melody strode off the stage and headed down the narrow hall to the green room.
* * *
“What’s wrong with you?” Melody said as soon as the door shut behind them.
Joe blinked in surprised.
He did look a little funny. He grabbed her hand and pulled it to his face, kissing her palm. She jerked it away.
“I thought it seemed like a great idea,” he said.
“Are you drunk?”
He’d been so nervous before the show. Nervous and in pain. Now he seemed way too mellow.
“I had a couple of drinks. Just to relax.”
“On top of your painkillers?”
“I know. Bad idea. But I didn’t want to make a fool of myself out there.”
She laughed, and the sound seemed to encourage him. He put his arms around her and backed her up to the wall. His hands were suddenly moving up and down her sides, and his head dipped for a kiss. Which she thought about. For a second. Before slipping out from under his arm, leaving him facing a bare wall.
He swung around. “I think we should get married.”
“Marriage isn’t a joke.”
“I know.” He looked at Max. “Think about Max. We could give him the stable home life he needs.”
“He has a stable home life.”
“I know, I know.” He waved a hand, erasing his words. “I still think it’s a good idea.”
“I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, you the same as lied to me. I could never be with someone who lies to me.”
“I couldn’t tell you the truth.”
“And for another, I can’t be with a cop. I just can’t.”
“What if I got another job?”
“What?”
“What if I quit being a cop?”
“You’d do that? For me?”
“Yes.” He seemed surprised by his answer, digested it a while, then drove it home. “I would. For you, I would.”
“You’re drunk. Well, stoned. Whatever. High. And even if you weren’t, I could never ask a person to change for me. To become somebody else for me.”
“We’re talking about a job, not my core beliefs.”
“What would you do?”
“Work full time at the shelter.”
But she could already see the idea sucking the identity out of him. Her dad could never give up his music, his band, no matter what. And Melody could never give up her children’s books, or Max. Joe couldn’t give up being a cop.
“It won’t work, Joe. It just won’t work. You’d end up hating me. Resenting me.” She put Max in his pink pet carrier, zipping the zipper. “Come on. Let’s go home.” But inside she wondered… What if she hadn’t stormed off the stage? What if she’d gone along with the marriage? Maybe sometimes you just had to dive in, because if you thought about something too long… If you thought about anything too long, you could always find a millions reasons why it wouldn’t work. And sometimes life could pivot on a moment, a second, a heartbeat.
“Let’s go home,” she repeated, and this time her throat was tight, and she felt ready to cry.
Chapter 17
A limousine took them directly from the Ellen DeGeneres Show to LAX. The ride was silent, and Melody had no idea what Joe was thinking. If he was coming down from his high, he was probably thinking he’d dodged a bullet.
The flight back to the Twin Cities was uneventful, with all three of them dozing off and on. Joe kept shifting in his seat, wincing in pain, but he was unwilling to take anything. “We’ll be home soon,” he said.
We’ll be home soon.
But they wouldn’t be going to the same homes.
The descent into the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport always seemed the longest part of the flight, especially at night. Melody leaned forward and watched for recognizable landmarks like Foshay Tower and the Metrodome, I-494 and the Mall of America. The plane circled and came in low over Saint Paul.
Joe leaned close to share the window. “We’re going right over Frogtown and Midway.”
“One of those lights could be my street, my house,” Melody said.
“Fair Grounds.” Joe pointed.
They’d talked about going to the state fair together in the fall, the Great Minnesota Get-Together. That wouldn’t be happening. In some ways, Melody wished she’d never found out about Joe. Wished she could go back in time to before she’d discovered his secret. Back when everything was wonderful between them.
Their plane landed, and pretty soon they made their way to the parking ramp where they piled into Joe’s car. Melody imagined crawling into bed with Max, maybe making a cup of hot chocolate, watching some television, trying to forget about the man in the seat beside her.
Fifteen minutes later, Joe pulled up in front of Melody’s house.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Joe said.
She looked at him. “That’s okay. Your leg hurts. Get home. Take some painkillers.”
He didn’t listen.
He carried her small case while she carried Max. The sidewalk ran next to the house, and they followed it around to the back door.
Which stood ajar.
Melody let out a gasp, and Joe stepped in front of her, pushing her behind him. His hand went inside his jacket; he cursed under his breath. No gun.
He squeezed her arm, silently transmitting his need for her to stay where she was. He entered the house, flipping on the overhead light.
In movies, they never turned on the lights. That’s what Melody was thinking.
Her heart slammed in her chest. What if someone wa
s inside? What if that someone had a gun? Like that other time?
She dropped Max’s cat carrier—gently—and ran into the house, shouting Joe’s name.
Joe swung around and looked at her in dismay. “Melody.” It was a warning to stay back. “Go outside. Call 9-1-1. Wait for the police to come.”
Silly, she thought, because he was the police. But he wasn’t in uniform. He didn’t have a gun. He didn’t have backup. Just a girl and her cat.
“Go outside,” Joe repeated.
“Not without you.” And then she saw the mess. The kitchen had been ransacked; broken dishes and glass littered the floor. “Oh, my cat coffee mug,” she said sadly.
Joe grabbed a broom. At first Melody thought he was going to start cleaning up. How strange. Instead, he grasped the handle in both hands and held it like a bat, moving deeper into the house. Lamps were broken, couch cushions scattered.
On to the bedroom. More of the same.
Not just ransacked but destroyed. “Why would someone do this?” Melody said.
Joe shook his head while he scanned the room, checking under the bed and in the closet. “Most thieves do very little damage. This is something else. I don’t like it.”
He moved through the house, methodically checking every area where someone could hide. Melody pulled out her cell phone and called 9-1-1.
Within minutes, sirens were blaring and lights were flashing, bouncing off the walls of the living room. Questions were asked. “Anything missing?”
“I don’t know,” Melody said. “Everything is such a mess.”
Notes were taken. And that was it.
“Someone will be getting in touch with you,” an officer said. And then the sirens and the cops were gone.
“I don’t like this,” Joe said again.
“I don’t either.”
“No, I mean it’s not your typical burglary. My guess is that the perpetrator knows you, knew you were gone, and was looking for something.”
“The whole country knew I was in California.” Melody bent to pick up a cushion.
“Don’t touch anything,” Joe said. “Let’s secure the door and leave. I’ll come back in the morning with a fingerprint kit. See if I can get anything, but I doubt it. I think this was a professional job made to look like an unprofessional job.”
Melody found a hammer. While Joe nailed the broken door closed, she wandered through the house, careful not to touch anything.
She should have moved. After David was killed, she should have moved. The house was cursed. She wandered back into the kitchen where Joe was finishing up. “My laptop is gone,” she said in a monotone voice.
He straightened, hands at his waist.
“That’s a pretty typical theft, isn’t it?” she asked. “Just kids stealing a laptop.” The theory reassured her, and the crime dropped in her mental ranking.
But she didn’t like the look on Joe’s face. “What?” she said.
“Maybe the laptop is what they wanted.”
“It’s just a laptop.” With a lot of pictures of Max inside.
They exited through the front door, collected Max, and got back in Joe’s car. He swung the car around and started heading toward his house.
“Take me to Lola’s,” Melody said.
“You can come to my place.”
“I want to go to Lola’s.” She knew Lola was probably in bed, but she needed to see her sister. And she needed to get away from Joe. Far away from Joe.
He paused at a stop sign and turned to look at her. He understood. Completely. Understood that this was it for them. The last straw. Because she had the feeling that the break-in was more about Joe than it was about her. Somebody knew he’d stayed there. Somebody knew he was her boyfriend. Or had been her boyfriend.
Let him lift his fingerprints or whatever they called it. Let him check the database to see if there were any matches. But then he needed to go away and never come back.
He nodded, looked straight ahead, and stepped on the gas.
* * *
Lola answered the door in pajama bottoms and a Roxy Music T-shirt. It took her a few seconds to process the news, but then she was pulling Melody inside, pushing Joe outside, shutting and locking the door.
“God, Melody. Oh, my God. And by the way, I saw the Ellen DeGeneres Show.” She shook her head.
“Crazy, right?”
“Did you think about it? Marrying Joe?”
“Not for a second.” She didn’t add that later she wondered. Later she kind of wished she’d done it. But now. Thank God she hadn’t. “A cop. Look at the bullshit he’s brought into my life.”
* * *
“There must be some reason you’re attracted to cops,” Lola said fifteen minutes later when they’d gotten Max fed and both sisters were lying in Lola’s bed, eating ice cream. “Maybe you need to stop fighting it.”
“I’m not attracted to creepy cops. Not the cops who were picked on as kids and are now on power trips.”
“Is there any other kind?”
“Yes.”
“See, you’re defending him.”
“Some cops are sweet. Some cops care about people.”
Lola rolled her eyes. “It’s just a job. But anyway, I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”
“Joe says they knew I was gone, so I don’t think I was ever in any danger.” She tried to sound convincing.
“Maybe you should move.”
She’d said it before. Lots of times. And now Melody was thinking the same thing. But she also had so many good memories in her house. And leaving… In a way, it would mean leaving David. Abandoning David. He was so much a part of the house. They’d worked on it together. They’d fallen more deeply in love there. And David had died there. That was the strange thing that Melody didn’t know how to explain. Even though his death had been violent, there was something spiritual about the house because David had drawn his last breath in the living room. David was the house. And until tonight, she’d actually felt comforted there, felt his presence lingering in the walls and in the sheets and in the curtains.
“This ice cream is really good,” she said, realizing she’d eaten most of hers without even tasting it. But now she became aware of the dark chocolate flavor on her tongue.
Max was lying between them on the floral quilt. “What was that thing Max did on television?” Lola asked.
“I don’t know. Wasn’t that weird? I’ve never seen him do that before.”
“It was kind of like the moon walk,” Lola said.
“I know!”
They both laughed.
Chapter 18
“Why don’t you stay here a few more days?” Lola asked as her sister gathered her things to head back home.
Melody zipped Max into his cat carrier, then straightened. “I’ll be fine. The door has been repaired, an alarm system installed.” Everyone had insisted upon the alarm system, and Melody had agreed. She and Lola had spent the past two days cleaning the house after Joe dusted for prints.
“No matches in the database,” he’d told her once images had been entered into the system.
“I just want my life to return to normal,” Melody told Lola. “I need to get back to work. I want to sleep in my own bed. By myself.”
Lola didn’t seem convinced. “Oh, wait. Your laptop. I mean, David’s.” She hurried to her bedroom, then returned with the laptop she’d borrowed from Melody a couple of weeks earlier. “You’ll need this.”
Melody hadn’t been able to make herself look at David’s laptop. So full of photos of them together. But now she was worried about losing them. What if his laptop had been stolen along with hers? She planned to back everything up as soon as she got home.
“Call me,” Lola said once Melody’s car was loaded. The sisters hugged, and Melody and Max took off down the street.
Once they were home, Melody tried to forget about the break-in. She settled into bed with Max and began to go through David’s old files, backing things up in cloud storage.
The doorbell rang. She peeked behind the curtain and spotted a florist’s truck. Melody opened the door to a massive bouquet of lush, pastel lilies. Tucked among the brightly colors blooms were sprigs of catnip. She thanked the deliveryman, put the flowers and their glass container on the kitchen counter, then opened the attached envelope.
“Oh, look, Max. It’s from Ellen.” She gave him a glimpse of the card before delving deeper into the message. “Thanks for visiting me in Burbank,” she read. “If you ever need someone to officiate at your wedding, let me know. XO, Ellen.” Melody pulled out a sprig of catnip and dangled it in front of Max’s nose. “That’s so sweet.”
He went wild. He ripped the green plant from her hand, chewed it, rolled on it, rolled on it some more, then raced around the house, banging into walls.
“Wow. That’s some high-powered catnip.” Melody watched Max a while to make sure he wasn’t going to injure himself, then she returned to the bedroom to continue with David’s files. Thirty minutes later she came upon a folder that said Cute Cat Photos. She smiled, clicked, and found that the folder didn’t contain jpeg files at all. Instead, it contained documents. Stranger still, they were all labeled confidential police business. So odd for David to have something like that on his personal computer.
Max jumped up beside her and stuck his nose in the screen. She elbowed him away gently. “Should I open a document, Max? It’s marked confidential. What do you think?”
Max meowed and put his paw on the keyboard.
She laughed and lifted him away. He came right back.
“It’s probably some kind of silliness. Who would mark a folder confidential? That’s like marking a door secret door. Like look here. Look in this secret door.” She stared at the screen. The desktop image was a photo of all three of them, David and Melody sitting on the couch, their bare feet on the table, with Max between them, lying upside down, his belly exposed. Lola had taken the picture while David and Melody laughed about how Max never took a bad photo.
“Hmm,” Melody said. “Maybe he wanted me to open it. Maybe that’s why he labeled it confidential. But then he would know me. I’m not the kind of person to open something that belongs to someone else.” She tapped her chin. “What to do, what to do.”