by Celia Mulder
Now the man really didn’t meet her eyes. “I don’t believe so, ma’am. At this point everyone responsible for the incident last night has been brought in.”
Lucille scowled and thunked her head against the back of the seat. “Don’t call me ma’am.”
“Yes...”
At the station, the policeman pulled up to the front and then hurried around to open her door. She didn’t have handcuffs on, but he insisted on escorting her through the building to Detective Adams’s office.
Lucille scowled again. She’d have preferred handcuffs and an interrogation room with the one-sided glass to whatever intimate conversation awaited her here. With a heavy dose of dread, she entered the office, accepted her orders to sit and wait, and heard the door lock from the outside, trapping her.
The office was a mess. There were papers strewn across the desk, overflowing from open file cabinets, and piled on the floor. In the midst of the clutter was a photo of Matt’s family at his sister’s graduation from med school, smiling and happy. Another photo sat beside it. A snapshot of her and Matt at the police academy holiday party, young and in love. With her uninjured arm, she swept that one into the overflowing trash can.
The door unlocked and Matt walked in, not looking at her as he made his way around his desk. He dropped more papers on a stack and settled into his office chair. Lucille watched the performance, one eyebrow raised.
He met her eyes. His were tired and sad, his hair unruly from a night of running his hands through it, the gray more prominent. He no longer looked as distinguished and sexy as he had when he’d stormed into Michel’s house a few days ago. Now he looked exhausted and desperate, and breaking his heart again would be cruel. Lucille wasn’t sure she was still enough of a cold, callous bitch to do that.
“Are you okay?” he asked her, his voice breaking with emotion as he spoke.
She had to be. This was getting pathetic. She had to do this for Matt’s own good. If he was ever going to get a girlfriend again, he needed to know there was a zero percent chance it’d be her. “No, I’m not. Some asshole shot me in the arm last night.”
Matt ran his hands through his hair. “I said I was sorry about that. Will you— I mean, can you ever forgive me?”
Lucille studied him. “I don’t know.”
Matt nodded. He looked down at his paperwork and then back at her. “I could have you arrested for breaking and entering Mr. Polce’s private residence.”
Lucille closed her eyes and shook her head.
He must have misread her reaction because he said, “There’s no use denying it. We have you on video.” He sounded smug, like he’d caught her.
“Really? That’s the tactic you want to go with, Matt? Not the way you get someone to forgive you, especially someone you’re clearly pining over.”
It was Matt’s turn to swallow. “How do you know I’m pining over you?”
“That picture.” Lucille pointed to the trash can.
Matt followed her direction to the photo. “Oh. Why is it in the trash?”
In her mind, she went off at him. Because you, the ex-boyfriend who had my uncle arrested for murder, should not be keeping a photo of me around like some lovesick schmuck! Out loud she said, “I didn’t like how my hair looks.”
Matt stared at her for a few minutes, his jaw clenched and his lips pressed together. Then he exploded, “Goddammit, Lucille! God fucking dammit! What is it about you that drives me crazy? You’re mean, sarcastic, and frankly kind of a bitch. I am a good guy. I am a good guy and a damn good detective. Yet for some reason, whenever you’re around, I become some bumbling idiot who needs your forgiveness so I can get on with my fucking life. One minute I swear to myself I’m over you, and the next you waltz back into my life, all high heels and sarcasm, and lay some grievous offense of mine at my feet. Well, you know what? I’m sick of it. I am sick of these stupid games. I am sick of waiting around for you to realize that I made a mistake eight years ago and that losing you was the worst fucking thing that ever happened to me. I love you. I’ve always, for some ungodly reason, loved you. Now can we get past all this shit and just be together?”
Matt had been pacing around the room as he talked, gesturing wildly. At the end, he sank to his knees in front of her and grabbed her hand.
The man was persistent to a fault. In some other reality, where they had other jobs and he hadn’t shot her or had her uncle arrested, maybe they’d be together. In this reality, he’d given what he probably thought was the most impassioned, romantic speech of his life, a speech in which he’d called her a cruel, sarcastic, heartless bitch. She paused, not because she was at all considering his offer, but in order to decide how best to proceed. Should she let him down gently or just slice off the putrid limb and be done with it?
Whether it was because of the life-changing events of the last few days or not, she didn’t have the energy to be cruel. “Matt,” she said, removing her hand from his, “I’m sure some day you’ll find a woman who will be nice to you and treat you right.”
“But you’re not that woman?” He looked into her eyes as he talked, his pleading.
“Have I ever been? You said so yourself, I turn you from an intelligent, competent detective into a pleading, bumbling asshole who keeps screwing up and apologizing.” She tried to say it kindly, but considering how exhausted she was, it came out biting anyway.
He didn’t seem to notice. “You’re right. I know you’re right.” He stood up.
She felt a fleeting sympathy for him. Poor guy. He had terrible taste in women.
Matt smiled and looked back at her. “I was just kidding about still loving you.”
Lucille shook her head. “No, you weren’t. But that’s okay.” She stood up and turned to leave.
“I could have your uncle arrested again. After all, he threatened Ms. Walton with an unlicensed gun,” Matt said from behind her.
Lucille sighed and turned back to him. “Seriously, Matt. Just stop. Do you really want to have my Uncle Simon around here for a few months, possibly years, while you try to get a jury to convict him? Him, here all the time, reminding you of me?”
Matt smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I was joking.”
“It was a sad joke.” She waited a moment to make sure he was done talking. “I’m going to go now.”
Lucille took a few steps. Her hand was on the door handle.
“Are you in love with that idiot Brett?”
She didn’t even turn this time, just tilted her head toward him and said, “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
And like that, she opened the door, walked out into the hallway, and was free of Matt Adams for good. She sighed and looked down at her bullet wound. Once this shoulder healed, she could stop thinking about him and cursing his name. Wouldn’t that be a relief.
Near the front door of the station she found her uncle, sitting casually on a bench, one leg crossed over the other as he watched police officers milling around.
“Lucy,” he said when he saw her, jumping up for a hug.
Her shoulder throbbed. She didn’t care. “You did it, didn’t you? You got your name cleared?”
He nodded. “Yes. Sylvia’s been arrested, Michel’s gone home, Beverly has been charged with Cooper’s murder. It’s all over.”
There was a pause as she fought back the tears of relief. It hadn’t been an easy couple of days.
“Well, almost over,” Simon added.
She pushed back to look at his face. “What do you mean?”
Simon nodded toward the front door. “There’s still another of your suitors waiting to talk to you outside.”
“If it’s Chad my college boyfriend, I am never leaving this building.”
Simon laughed. “I’ve got to hear about Chad sometime. But no, it’s just Brett.”
“Oh, him? Yeah, I do want to talk to him.”
Simon grinned. “I figured you might.”
“Shut up.”
“What? The guy’s g
rowing on me. Plus, he has that tortured artist thing really working for him, and he’s best friends with Michel Polce. If you don’t talk to him, I will.”
Lucille punched him in the arm. “Hey, stop moving in on my man.”
“If he’s not tied down...” Simon feigned a dash to the door.
Lucille laughed. “I want to hear how you got your charges dropped so quickly.”
Simon sighed loudly. “It’s actually quite boring and anticlimactic. I’ll tell you some time. Now seriously, get out there.”
“I will. But there’s something I do need to talk to you about first. It’s about the business.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Brett was nervous as he waited on the front steps of the police station. Nervous and feeling less than fresh. He was still in the same clothes from the day before. They were the clothes he’d been wearing when he’d had sex with Lucille. The clothes he’d worn to Michel’s and then throughout the sweat-producing ordeal of nearly dying and then watching his new maybe-girlfriend nearly die. Then he’d been hauled off to the police station, shirtless under his jacket, interrogated by said maybe-girlfriend’s dick of an ex-boyfriend, and had now been waiting outside said station for the last hour, all the while wearing the same clothes. In the rom-com version of this moment, he’d have plenty of time to dash home, shower, change, grab a big bouquet of roses, and catch up with Lucille before she got on her plane to start some exciting job across the country.
In the real-life version, he was terrified of missing her, terrified of leaving this spot in case she walked out through the doors and he never saw her again. Knowing her, she’d change her name and wipe all record of her existence after this. She’d move at once, if she hadn’t magically done so while being in the hospital with a gunshot wound. She may be done with this case, but she had other clients and a revolving door of perspectives. Not to mention her fugitive uncle who she’d been reunited with and who treated subterfuge as a lifestyle instead of a necessity.
The uncle who Lucille was now talking to in the station vestibule. Brett could see them in his periphery. His pride told him to look out at the street and pretend to be nonchalant, but his paranoia had him keep one eye on the door at all times.
They’d been standing in that hallway talking for forever. What could they possibly be talking about? Probably him. No, his ego wasn’t so inflated as to believe that. Speaking, or rather thinking, of his ego, it didn’t feel quite so crippled as before. He didn’t have the urge to drink himself into blackness or sex himself numb. He didn’t have the urge to write, to have people judge him and criticize him because of the work he’d put out years ago. Was it, could it be possible, he was moving past The Night Before the Apocalypse? What did that mean? If he wasn’t an alcoholic, failed screenwriter, and the last few days had shown him that he was not, what was he? A whole world of possibilities, the idea of something, anything without his past tempering it, stretched out like a cooling ocean before him. Christ, he was going off the deep end. Here he was, on the steps of a police station, gearing up for some big romantic confession, and he was having an existential crisis.
Still, whatever it was, whatever he did from here on out, it had to be better. He believed it to be better. He already knew what the first step was. If she’d hurry up and get her ass out here.
***
Lucille left the police station, smiling from her talk with Simon. The sun shone without a cloud in the sky, the city smog beat down on her, and the whole world looked Technicolor.
Brett sat on the steps, his back turned to her, his head angled so she knew he saw her approach. He wore the same clothes from yesterday, now grungy and rough around the edges, his sling showing the worst wear of the ordeal. She didn’t look much better. Since everyone had been in police custody while she was hospitalized, no one had brought her clean clothes. Her only option had been Sylvia’s blood-stained evening gown. Her hair must have been a sight and her makeup smudged and caked. She’d taken off her heels in Matt’s office and couldn’t go back to get them now, so she was barefoot under the ruined $56,000 gown. Her shoulder throbbed in its sling. She needed to get her pain prescription filled, but her car was at Michel’s house. And first, before any of the hygiene and pain management and practical considerations, she had to find out if Brett would go for the idea she was about to present to him.
Brett stood up as she approached and turned to face her. He looked her up and down, taking in the sling and the dress and her bare feet, and he swallowed, his eyes alight with interest. Lucille exhaled. She thought about saying screw it and making out with him right on these steps. She almost did, and would have, but Brett spoke first.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sort of. It kind of depends,” she answered lamely. She was still thinking about fucking him.
Brett nodded. “Things are complicated between you and Detective Adams.”
“Uh, no. That’s not it.”
Brett nodded, and she wasn’t sure he believed her.
“Brett. The guy shot me in the shoulder, not to mention tried to send my uncle to jail for a crime he didn’t commit, and had me followed. There is no question of that ever working out.”
This time Brett smiled when he nodded. “Good. Because...well, I wouldn’t like that.”
“I know you wouldn’t.”
Neither of them spoke. The silence was tense and uncomfortable. Lucille decided to bite the bullet and talk first.
“I’ve been—”
“Did you—?” Brett started saying at the same time.
“You first,” Lucille offered.
“No, you. I mean, mine’s not that important. Okay, it’s kind of important, but maybe it’s not? I don’t know, but I think it might be. At least to me. About you. Because you are important. To me.”
“Honest to God, Brett, just say whatever you’re going to say.” The man was annoying. Adorable but annoying. Something they were going to have to deal with if this was to work.
“Okay.” His next words came out in a rush. “Did you mean what you said when Sylvia was holding us at gunpoint about loving me?”
That was what he was twittering about? “Don’t be stupid, of course I didn’t mean it. I’ve only known you for three days. But I do like you.” Lucille grinned at him.
“You do?”
“Well, sure.”
Brett grinned. “Cool. I mean, I like you too.”
As far as romantic speeches went, that was just about perfect. Lucille moved forward until they were on the same level, him a few steps down and her, barefoot, at the top. Brett reached out and pulled her the rest of the way to him with his good arm, gently so as not to hurt her injured shoulder. What a pair we make, Lucille thought as he kissed her, gently, sweetly, with all the time in the world.
They kissed for a few minutes or possibly a lifetime. Brett pulled back. “What were you going to say?”
“About what?” Lucille was dazed, exhausted, and feeling something like giddiness.
“About whatever you were going to say earlier.”
“Right.” Lucille nodded. This was the big one. Mutual attraction or no, this was the clincher in their relationship. “I’m giving up the business. I talked to my uncle, and he’ll be taking over everything. As of about fifteen minutes ago I’m unemployed, and I feel like doing something drastic and rash with my life. Like going straight, becoming an undercover agent for the CIA, and specializing in foreign affairs.”
Brett’s expression was unreadable. “Okay...”
“That’s all you have to say? Okay?” Lucille bit her lip. This was not going well. She took her hand from around Brett’s waist and prepared to make a retreat. He didn’t let her go.
“Well, yeah, I mean, it’s a bit cliché, but you can do whatever you want. It’s your life. It’s not like you need my permission,” Brett said, his grip tightening on her.
He was worried she was leaving him behind. “Don’t be a dummy,” she said. “I want you to go with me. It�
��s just...I mean, you have your writing career and Michel, and I don’t know much about your family but you may not want to leave them...”
Brett’s grin was back. He kissed her right in the middle of her speech, an interruption she didn’t mind.
“Lucille,” he said when he stopped. “Before you walked out here, I was on the verge of an existential crisis about my future. I’m done with the whole alcoholic, failed-screenwriter thing, I don’t get along with my family, and I really think it’s best for both of us to take some time off from Michel. Something drastic and rash and probably dangerous sounds like exactly what I need in my life right now. Besides it’s about time I did something with my PhD in chemistry.”
“You have a PhD in chemistry? I had no idea.”
“Which is why it’s way past time we get to know each other better. Like all the way better,” Brett said with a wide grin.
She kissed him. Lucille didn’t know when she’d felt so happy, so content, and so unbelievably hungry. This time she pulled back.
“Brett, I’m starving.”
He nodded. “Me too. And I need a shower.”
Lucille nodded. “But I’m incredibly turned on right now.”
“Okay, so food, shower, sex?”
“Sounds divine. But my car is at Michel’s.”
“So cab to Michel’s?”
“Yes, and then food, shower, sex.”
“We could always combine the shower and sex,” Brett suggested.
Lucille gestured at their injuries. “In our condition? Sex in a bed is going to be tricky. Throw a shower in there and it’ll be a mess.”
“We could always take a bath.”
Lucille kissed him. “I like where this is headed, Mr. Jacobs.”
“As do I, Miss Anton.”
Brett took her free hand and led her down to the curb to hail a cab.
“Any chance we could throw in picking up our pain med prescriptions in between the cab to Michel’s and the food?” Lucille asked as she wrapped her fingers in his.
“You know what? Let’s throw caution to the wind and get the pain meds first, then Michel’s for your car, food, bath, and sex.”