The Kiss That Counted

by Karin Kallmaker

  Officer's Lopez—Emily hastily corrected herself after calling her Anita—re-holstered her gun. "I have to do ten pages of paperwork now, just for drawing my weapon."

  "You could have just shot him," Emily said drily.

  "Would have saved time. You shoot somebody and they give you a stenographer and you don't have to write a single thing." Anita's ferocious stare had already softened to concern as she turned to Karita. "Are you sure that's just a scrape?"

  "Yes." From where CJ sat on the floor. she could see Karita showing her arm to Emily. "It's not too bad."

  "Baby, baby, you're supposed to get to a safe place. What were you thinking?" Emily put her arms around Karita and squeezed her tight. CJ could have hated Emily right then, but she was too shocked for anything more than envy to get through.

  Karita gave a wheezy laugh and CJ realized she was crying with the release of tension. "I was thinking that you'd never leave here again because look what happened when you left me in charge."

  Everybody, including a couple of the newly arrived cops, laughed. It got even more raucous when Ulli indignantly pronounced, "That man should have to clean all this up!"

  "How did he know to come here?" Anita had a notebook out and was already scrawling in it.

  "His wife called him. She hid her cell phone, got settled, then called him up to needle him." CJ felt something wet on her sore hip. "They were screaming at each other on the phone when he busted down the window."

  "So much for the impact resistant safety glass." Emily finally let go of Karita. "I need to check on the clients and then I've got to find them another place to go. We're not secure with that window all knocked out."

  Anita frowned. "Do you have a handyperson who can put up some plywood?"

  "You're talking to her."

  Anita and Emily disappeared in the direction of the stairs. CJ considered if she ought to try to stand up. Karita was setting chairs upright and making sure Ulli sat down. "I'll make tea."

  When Karita's back was turned CJ dragged herself into a chair. It got absurdly quiet for a moment, then Karita finally looked at her.

  "He was going to kill you."

  "No." CJ hoped she sounded cocky. She didn't want to look down at her hip. "He was going to try. There's a difference."

  "You should have run for it."

  "That would have meant leaving you." There was way too much truth in her voice, she realized too late.

  Karita's eyes shimmered like sunlight on snow. "I couldn't go either."

  Aunt Bitty was still in the room, or at least it felt like she was to CJ. Aunt Bitty, throwing one of the little knives she liked, whispering in her ear, "But CJ, isn't that what you're going to do as soon as you can get out of here? Run for it?"

  Only if she's safe, CJ answered. She comes first I'm such a fool. "I couldn't leave you alone with a homicidal maniac. You or Ulli," she added.

  Karita just looked at her with those incredible blue eyes. Time did that strange thing again, seeming to slow, but not really. They were the only two people alive until the kettle whistled.

  CJ watched Karita make up a milky blend for Ulli, delivered with a heartfelt hug. "I'm so sorry this happened while you were here."

  Ulli sipped before saying, "You see scenes like that in movies and it isn't real at all."

  CJ said quietly, "No, it really isn't."

  Karita gave her another of those searching looks, all blue and icy fire. "You'd know, wouldn't you?" She set down a sugared mug of tea. "Drink up—oh my God, CJ, you're bleeding."

  "It's nothing. I'll patch it up at home." She sipped the tea automatically and her brain started working again. Any minute Officer's Lopez would come back and want statements. She'd want CJ to press charges too, and sooner or later someone would want her testimony and she did not intend to be around when they did. That loser could actually end up with a decent lawyer who'd happily go looking for reasons to call CJ Roshe a liar. For all she knew, fingerprints of juveniles, even those with sealed records, could be in the law enforcement databases. Her fingerprints would turn up a match to a young woman who'd gone missing from the hospitality of the great State of Kentucky. "I need to be going, actually."

  "I'll get Em."

  "No, Karita, please." CJ caught her hand. "Please. I can't talk to the cops. I can't be involved in this. I have to go."

  "You're not accused of anything here, he is—" Karita paled. "You weren't making it up, were you? What you told him."

  "I said a lot of things, and it wasn't all true." CJ knew she sounded desperate. "I never meant you to know. It's not important. I can't talk to the police."

  "They'll just find you tomorrow or the next day for your statement."

  CJ burned her mouth on a last gulp of the tea, and pushed herself to her feet. Her wrist and elbow yelped at her to sit down again, but it was her knee that really screamed. Her hip she didn't really feel much beyond the sticky trickle of blood. "I have to go."

  Using the chairs and wall she made it to the back door.

  "CJ, wait!"

  She kept going. Selfish to the core, she thought. She didn't want to spare Karita anything. She was running away because she didn't want to see the look on Karita's face when she put all the pieces together. Every word she'd used to goad that creep had been true.

  "CJ!" Karita was beside her, trying to get her to stop.

  "That's not my name." But it was—she wanted it to be. She felt woozy.

  "I don't care. You can't drive. Where are you going?"

  "Canada."

  "I'll go with you."

  "Karita, you can't." In the dark alongside the house it was easier to find the right words to make Karita go back inside. "I'm not a cause of the week. I'm not a dark spot that a little bit of laughter and light will clear up. I'm a fucking black hole and you don't have that much to give me."

  The deepening twilight robbed Karita's eyes of some of their light. "Let me help."

  "What would you know about it?" CJ desperately searched for harsher words, knowing that Karita had to walk away, had to hate her, otherwise she would give into the weakness and throw herself into Karita's arms. She'd bloody and dirty the Madonna and lose the woman anyway. "I don't need the kind of Band-Aids you give out so easily. This week it's me. Last week some depressed lawyer. Before that Emily."

  "Don't."

  "I'm not saying it's wrong. It's who you are. You're like a hummingbird, defying reality, a beautiful mystery, spreading your sweetness to all the needy flowers. Well, I'm no pretty garden blossom and I don't need your brand of sugar."

  "You're being an idiot, CJ." Karita made a little gulping sound that almost broke CJ's resolve.

  "I'm not just some wounded puppy you can nurse back to wholeness. I'm the bad girl you were warned about."

  "No, you're not. You might think you're bad, but you do good things."

  A wave of dizziness reminded CJ that she didn't have much time. "You only think there's a heart of gold in here because I wanted you to think that."

  "Stop it—"

  "Don't you get it? I killed somebody."

  Karita gasped and put her hands to her mouth.

  CJ limped away, her last salvo fred. At least it had been dark and she could blame the dimming of Karita's eyes on the absence of the moon.

  Chapter 13

  Fortunately, the police cruiser with the suspect had already left and the one that remained wasn't blocking CJ in. She used the remote to unlock the car, but the street was sloped and gravity worked against her as she struggled with the driver's door.

  The door was abruptly propped open and CJ leaned on the car frame, fighting back tears.

  "Please, Karita." She didn't even know what she was asking for anymore.

  "Get in the other side. I'll drive you wherever you're going."

  "I can't send you away again. I'm not strong enough."

  "You tried." Karita almost sounded like she was laughing. "You really gave it your all."

  "It was the truth."<
br />
  Karita slipped an arm around her. "Only part of the truth. I have the feeling you left out some things."

  She was warm and strong and CJ really didn't want to be weak, but it was hard not to lean on her. They hobbled around to the passenger door and Karita helped her get settled. Her hip and leg felt soaked and her knee was on fire.

  Once in the driver's seat, Karita said, "You're right. It's easier for me to love a lot of things. It spares me getting in too deeply with anything that might hurt."

  "You're in the wrong car to stick with that philosophy."

  "I know that."

  CJ gestured weakly. "Under your seat. I need my purse."

  Karita fished it out. "Where do you need to go? Please tell me an emergency room."

  "No. If I get treatment they can make me testify. Someone will find out who I am."

  "You're not thinking clearly," Karita said. "They can't make you testify against your will. They're not even going to need your testimony. That guy is on his way to jail for a while, just for breaking into the shelter, and I fully intend to testify he swung that bat at me with all his strength."

  "They'll tell me it's the right thing to do, and I'll have to do it because if I don't then I'm…then I'm really…no good."

  "I don't understand," Karita said softly. She started the car. "But give me some time, would you?"

  CJ flipped open her cell phone. The number was still on speed dial. She waited three rings, prepared to hang up if she got voice mail. Instead, a sleepy voice answered.

  "I need your help, Abby," she said without preamble. "Will you be home for a while?"

  "Yes, and I was sleeping, thank you. Can't it wait? I'm—great, you woke her up too."

  "I'm sorry, it can't wait. I need a little…patching up."

  Abby said a very bad word but the phone wasn't near CJ's ear anymore. The lifeline of Karita's voice grew distant. It wasn't anything like fainting, but more like someone was holding her under black water and she was too weak to struggle.

  "How long will she be out?" Karita's gaze kept straying to CJ, who looked lifeless on Abby's sofa.

  Abby looked up from scrubbing her hands at the sink in the small kitchen. "Not long. She told me once she had low blood pressure which is probably why the blood loss hit her so hard. It looked like a lot more blood than it was."

  "Those punctures were deep." Val, Abby's girlfriend, still had a disapproving crease between her eyebrows. Both women wore tees and jeans. A twin case of bed head was an unmistakable sign of having been woken from sleep.

  "And could fester, though I think she bled freely long enough to flush the wound." Abby dried her hands and sat down at the little dinette with Karita. "Basic RICE treatment for her knee and wrist, though if I know CJ, she's not going to rest, compress or elevate it. Right now is the only ice she'll put on it, too. She's lucky I was home. We both just finished seventy-two hour shifts."

  "And we woke you. I'm sorry about that." Karita's memory of the woman CJ had been seducing at Gracie's hadn't been inaccurate; Abby was attractive, not to mention smart enough to be a doctor. She was nothing like a hummingbird—was that CJ's euphemism for fake? The more she thought about the remark, the more it hurt.

  "I can't say I ever expected CJ to call. It was never her strong suit." Abby's lips twisted in a half-bitter, half-resigned expression.

  "How long were you together?" Karita had been wanting to ask that since the moment she'd seen the fleeting look of sorrow on Abby's face when CJ had collapsed onto the sofa.

  "Together—that's really not the right word for it."

  Val, looking uncomfortable, put a hand on Abby's shoulder. "I'm going back to bed."

  "I'm really sorry," Karita repeated, once the bedroom door was closed. She lowered her voice. "Not that it would have changed my mind. CJ was insistent."

  "She can be very persuasive."

  "She's a keen observer of people." Inwardly, Karita mused that CJ had never tried to talk her into anything except leaving her alone as they left the shelter. Very likely she could have gotten just about anything she wanted. Maybe—and the fact was as hard to face as some of the things CJ had said to her—CJ just didn't want her ‘brand of sugar.' "If ‘together' isn't the right word for your relationship with CJ, what is?"

  "Convenient. We dated at her convenience for the last two years. Not all her fault—I didn't have time for more until recently. And she's not a ‘more' kind of woman." Abby's eyes held a warning.

  Actually, Karita wanted to say, she thought CJ was definitely a more kind of woman. The problem was that she didn't think she could have more, and possibly didn't think she deserved more. Maybe her reluctance wasn't about Karita's brand of sugar at all. CJ resisted any brand of sugar that could tie her down. She might have said as much to Abby but CJ stirred on the sofa.

  "Jesus, Abby, what did you give me?"

  "A half a valium and a whole bunch of ibuprofen."

  CJ turned her head and blinked a couple of times. "Who took my pants off?"

  Abby smirked. "We all did, and you slept through it."

  "I'll take you home when you're ready," Karita said. "You're going to be black and blue in a couple of places, and you've got three sets of two stitches on your hip."

  "I can't go home."

  "You can't stay here," Abby said firmly.

  Karita decided Abby's tone was effective. She matched it as she said, "I'm taking you home, and I don't want to hear any more of that bad-person-gotta-run-for-it garbage."

  "Huh?" Abby gave CJ a quizzical look. "What's she talking about?"

  "Things nobody needs to know about." CJ moved the ice pack off her knee and swung her legs around to put her feet on the floor.

  "I wouldn't stand up quickly if I were you." Abby spoke as if she was certain her advice wouldn't be heeded.

  Karita wanted in the worst way to go to CJ and help, but the hummingbird comment stung. The idea that CJ could see love, affection, caring, her desire to make people's live better as somehow shallow felt like Mandy, all over again. Was Emily's commitment to one thing doing more good? Nann—now there was obsession in a nutshell. Nann and Emily were peas in a pod. Women with a vision. What was wrong with being part of their visions if it gave her joy? She paid her way in this world.

  CJ had ignored Abby, of course, and she wobbled in place.

  "Oh, for Pete's sake." Karita got up to give CJ something solid to lean on while she got her bearings. "There's a difference between stubborn and pigheaded, you know."

  Abby snorted.

  CJ clamped one hand on Karita's arm. "This is my dream come true, that's for sure. You psychoanalyzing me with my ex."

  Karita wasn't all that gentle as she lowered CJ to the chair she had vacated. "You'd better be nice to the woman who cleaned you up in the middle of the night. Plus you need something to wear so you still need her generosity."

  "I've got another pair of pants in the car—in the back. There's a suitcase."

  Karita made her way out to the parking lot to CJ's Trailblazer and found herself staring in surprise. There really was a suitcase, stuffed to the max, including a laptop. CJ had been that scared. Where had she been intending to go?

  After selecting a soft pair of jeans she zipped everything closed again, slammed the rear hatch and went back to the apartment at a slow walk. CJ was right about one thing—simple wishes weren't going to get rid of whatever it was that had her scared enough to run. Had she really killed someone? Was she wanted for murder? It seemed impossible. There had to be an explanation. CJ wasn't a cruel person—maybe it had been self-defense. There was no doubt in Karita's mind that CJ had at some point been battered. She'd presumed it was a childhood scar, but maybe there was a more recent wound.

  She handed over the pants and CJ looked relieved.

  "Everything's there? Fine?"

  "Yes, everything's there. I locked it all up again."

  "Great, thank you." CJ moved very slowly, especially her knee and wrist, neatly wrapped in suppo
rt bandages. "You missed my elbow," she muttered.

  "You don't have to be cranky about it." Abby pushed back from the table. "I'll get another roll."

  "No—I'm sorry. You've been great and believe me, I won't trespass again." CJ had her pants up to her hips and she carefully got to her feet again, waving away Karita's help. "I can't explain everything. But I never got the chance to say—are you sure it was just a half a valium?"

  "Yes, I'm sure." Abby stood with her hands on her hips. "You never got the chance to say what?"

  Karita couldn't help but think that if CJ had brought her heart to the relationship with Abby they would probably be content as partners—two strong-willed women with similar drive and focus. Not that she had any intention of mentioning it. She'd stood there and let Lucy ask CJ out, risked CJ maybe kissing someone else. She wasn't going to be stupid again.

  "If I ever hurt you, I'm sorry. I never lied to you, but even so, I never told you the truth."

  Abby's smile finally reached her eyes as she said, "I should have given you a whole valium. There's no telling what you'd say then."

  CJ had limited experience with substances like valium. She was perfectly capable of expressing her opinion but simply couldn't find the energy to be alarmed when Karita ignored her.

  "It's okay, Em, we're both fine," Karita was saying. For a woman who hadn't known how to turn on the cell phone, Karita was doing well driving and talking at the same time. "She does? Can't I give a statement in the morning? Because she's hurt. I know what I'm doing. Em—I'll give a statement tomorrow. I don't know if she will. I don't know. It's her decision. Co-dependent, I know. Em, thank you. I know what I'm doing and I know why I'm doing it, too."

  Even without the sedative in her system CJ wasn't sure what she was hearing would make sense.

  "I'm really not a child."

  It took a moment to realize that Karita was talking to her. She answered, "No, I don't think of you as a child."

  "Just a hummingbird." The hurt in Karita's voice was palpable.

  "That was—I was trying to get you to leave me alone. You don't want any part of my life." Karita turned a corner and CJ recognized her apartment complex.